


you and me (were meant to be)

by Teroe



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Mutual Pining, i wanted to write a stupid college au with a huge side helping of pining, so here it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-14 01:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12996846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teroe/pseuds/Teroe
Summary: Her name is Clarke and she likes coffee and it takes you half a second to decide you like her.orthe ‘i just met you but there’s this couples contest on campus rn and all my friends are busy and you’re just sitting there reading on the quad, pls the prize is a Technivorm Moccamaster KBT 741 and my coffee machine broke last week and im dying pls i need my coffee’ au (aka the couples competition au)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be stupid/fun and without stress but then it turned into a project. it's basically done so updates will be weekly on sunday.

If asked you would say you were bribed. Or blackmailed. Something dramatic like that. Except you don’t even like coffee and the last time someone tried to force you to do something you didn’t want to do they ended up with a fist to the face and a bloody nose. What you do like though are pretty blonde girls in loose button-ups and tiny jean shorts and backward snapbacks, so in hindsight there really was no hope for you.

So you say yes, and it's this wobbly cracked thing that stumbles from the tip of your tongue in two pieces that’s only halfway out your mouth by time she’s pulling you to your feet.

“Come on,” she says, urging, her lips halfway to a grin and you’re already lost. “The competition starts in ten and we still haven’t signed up.”

You’re pulled from your spot in front of the library and into the thick of things without warning and she doesn’t let go of your hand in what you assume is a precaution against losing you to the droves of people congregating on the quad. This is what you imagine a stampede to feel like, the cacophony rattling and your breath lodged just below your throat, but you focus on her hand and everything thins. It’s the beginning of October, right when the chill of oncoming autumn is contested only by the sun’s last attempts at summer, but you know it more commonly as homecoming week.

There’s stands with food and drinks and the art students have dragged out displays and people crowd in a manner that makes at least some semblance of sense. Clubs and various organizations shout to be heard above the ruckus of the radio club, vying for the attention of the incoming freshman who wander through the chaos like lost souls in the styx.

You see the queue for the line by the practice field. It’s not long, but the sun’s in your eyes and Clarke turns the hat on her head to block it. She fiddles, lifting and shifting until it rests the way she wants it. It sits a little askew, her blonde hair ruffles and curls.

“Have you done this before?” she says.

You look away only to settle on a burly young man attempting to rip his shirt off, and you turn back to focus on Clarke. That’s also a terrible idea, so you shift to watch the line steadily move forward. “Gotten drafted into a couples competition by a stranger? No, I haven’t.”

“Enjoyed the festivities I mean.” Clarke says, and the small smirk she wears means your attempt at humor went better than planned. “Did I drag you away from something important?”

“Not particularly.” You’d actually be apart of it if you hadn’t been coerced into delegating the task to Anya. She had said you needed a break. Really, you think she just gets off seeing the freshmen's faces when they meet you for the first time and are lulled into a false sense of security. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t find it amusing in some ways.

“Good.”

The silence picks up, interspersed by the low chatter of the couple in front of you. The girl giggles, tucked into the side of her boyfriend and he bends to whisper something into her ear before pressing his mouth to the side of her head. She swats at him playfully, but her retaliation doesn’t last, her arms wrapping around his torso.

“Why me?” you ask softly and Clarke brows scrunch, confused, so you squeeze her hand and repeat: “Why me? Surely you’d have a better chance with someone else.”

Clarke snorts and looks ahead, standing briefly on her tip-toes to peer around the people in line in front of you, tilting the bill of her hat back. It’s another second before she says, nonchalant, “And be utterly heteronormative? Please. I didn’t spend my high school years struggling with my sexual identity to stop here.” She glances at you and maybe you’re imagining the way her eyes dart to your lips. “Plus all my friends were busy.”

Your heart thuds, a quick one-two beat, and you feel lost. It takes a second to pull yourself back. “What makes you so sure?”

“About what?” Clarke says with a slight smile.

You watch her watch you. “Me.”

“A hunch?” she says, raising her shoulders in an innocent shrug. “Am I right?”

She is. God, she is. Your eyes dart to her lips--to her eyes and the faint flush dusting her cheeks and you swallow before tearing your eyes away, but she lets out a small laugh and you’re right back to where you started.

“You have a rainbow pin on your bag,” she points out, her voice soft and unassuming, and you look down despite knowing what you’ll find. You completely forgot you had that. “I figured the odds were in my favor. But if you’re not comfortable with, uh, this… thing, I… No hard feelings, really. You don’t have to do this.”

You move another pace forward, tugging her gently forward with you. You’ve never been one to back down from a challenge. “I want to.”

“Okay,” Clarke says, a grin slow to form on her lips. She squeezes your hand and you feel it light a fire in you. “Then lets kick some ass.”

You’re still staring at her by the time you make it to the front and the guy behind the table at the sign-in tent can’t keep the wry smile from his mouth. He taps his pen against the plastic fold-out table. “Welcome to the annual Official Unofficial King and Queen Competition. . .ladies,” he says, and Clarke scoffs quietly next to you, her thumb passing restlessly back and forth across your knuckles. “Here to sign up? You’re just in time. Names please.”

“Clarke and Lexa,” Clarke supplies easily, and the guy mmhmms as he scribbles chicken scratch onto a ledger. You catch Clarke eyeing the impressive coffee machine up for grabs, this superfluous monster of a machine that you’d swear could sooner do your taxes than make you a cup of coffee.

“Nice to meet you, Clarke and Lexa,” he says, peeling off two stickers from a roll by his right elbow and holding them out to you. “Stickers where we can see ‘em, alright? You can leave your belongings here if you want and the competition starts in five. All couples should be by the platform on the practice field by the start time, you know the deal. Good luck guys.”

You take yours somewhat awkwardly, stuck to your index finger, unsure of what to do with it until you see Clarke place hers on the sleeve of her button up, patting it down with this small determined look on her face. You place yours on your stomach, over the loose white tee you’re wearing, and then hand over your bag for safe-keeping.

Clarke takes your hand again a second later like it’s already a habit, threading your fingers together and wiggling, and you allow yourself to be led. From what you can see, the practice field is set up accordingly. There appears to be what seems like an obstacle course made out of some of the old football equipment set up at strategic points on the field. Even the few rows of bleachers have already started to fill out with spectators. They’re either friends of the competitors or those with down time during the festivities and looking for a laugh.

You’re not unused to the attention though it’s hard to not find it a tad unnerving. This is nothing short of a spectacle, meant for entertainment and the emotions and thrill competition brings, perhaps at the expense of your pride. You’ve learned from experience not to let it get to you. It makes you impulsive, a little bit reckless, and that’s not something you are. But now, as Clarke leads you up onto the platform and the adrenaline begins to prickle to life under your skin, you let it. You have a feeling you’ll need it.

The group of couples line up in a row and you and Clarke find a spot near the end of the line as one of the last few onto the stage. She sticks close, her arm around your waist and this small determined grin on her face as she scopes out the competition, looking up and down the line appraisingly. Watching her drowns out the noise, the persistent chatter of the other competitors and the far off white noise of the people filling out the stands.

Confidence looks good on her.

She snaps out of it the second someone tests the microphone and the sound blares loudly, her arm tensing around your waist. A few boos and curses issue out from the stands and your host, a tall, bright eyed man with shaggy hair and a slight beard, laughs. He shakes it off, tapping the microphone one more time to make sure it works as intended, before spreading his arms wide.

“Welcome!” his voice booms over the speakers, voice low and powerful, and the crowd erupts into cheers. You can feel the sound in your chest. “To the annual official unofficial Polis U King and Queen Competition!”

The man takes a moment to bask in the noise, scanning the crowd, smiling as random onlookers take notice of the commotion and try to find seats among the madness. “Today, these young lovers will seek to prove their worth in three grueling tasks for the right to become this year’s top couple. So sit back, relax, pick a favorite, they’ll need all the help they can get.”

“Are you ready?” you hear Clarke mutter, just barely over the noise, and you dip your head, angling towards her. You try not to look at her, but she turns to you then and your world seems to crumble, leaving nothing but the sight of her looking back at you.

“I was born for this, Clarke,” you tease, and her lips stretch into the widest grin.

“--first,” the hosts voice cuts through your self induced fog and you look back up and out over the crowd, trying to ignore the way Clarke holds you tighter. “Let us weed out the weak.”

A stagnant pause hangs over the training field

“Contestants!” the man continues, and there’s a certain satisfaction you find in the way a few of the men in line jump at the words that travel over the loudspeaker. “Spread out before you is an obstacle course designed to test your physical limits. Men, and women,” he corrects quickly at the sight of you, “must carry their ladies on their shoulders safely all the way across field to the end. But the catch,” he motions to a helper down on the field and they quickly toss up a brightly colored beach ball, “is that this must as well.”

“You are allowed,” he continues, “to use this ball to knock the other competitors ball out of their hands. You may not tackle, hit, or otherwise hurt your fellow competitors, but besides, be one of the first fifteen couples to cross the finish line and you’re through.”

Clarke pokes you in the side as you and the other competitors are herded off the platform and down onto the field. “How fast can you run?”

“Fast enough,” you say.

“I say we book it. Let the rest fight amongst themselves.”

You fight back a smile as you watch her out of the corner of your eye, taking a knee once you arrive at the starting line. You brace your hands against the grass and Clarke clambers onto your shoulders, her touch light against your back. When she finally settles, hands on your head, you hook your arms around her thighs and try to make sense of the extra weight. “Ready?” you say, tilting your head back and tapping her leg to get her attention. From the look on her face, you have an inkling she might be afraid of heights. “on three, two, one--”

You stand and Clarke’s grip tightens on your hair briefly, fingers tugging a bit at the strands, before the tension relaxes. She gathers her bearings, legs clenched around your shoulders, feet hooked on your sides. Any tighter and the circulation to your arms might cut off, but she takes a moment to center herself.

“I’m good,” she says, a bit too quickly. “Yeah, I’m good.”

She holds out her hands and one of the event staff tosses up a blue beachball that she catches just barely. She lets out a slow breath, nodding to herself, and clutches the ball to her chest.

You find your place behind the line, watching the others settle in beside you. Some look lost. This palpable apprehension that seems to take hold in their eyes. They won’t make it twenty feet, you’re sure. The tall dark man with the broad chest and the small firecracker of a woman on his shoulders not ten feet down from you, however, is another story altogether.

Everything drowns away the second the countdown starts over the speakers. You feel kind of stupid, but there’s a pretty girl with her legs around your neck and everything else seems to fall away in comparison. She’s warm. Not to mention probably more embarrassed about this than you. Or at the least that’s what you find yourself hoping the second the countdown reaches zero and you bolt off as fast as you can towards the finish line.

Only to make it two feet before someone comes running at you from the side with a yellow beachball.

You manage a strangled “ _Clarke_ ,” and she turns.

There’s a split second you take to brace yourself and Clarke is just as fast. She meets the impact head on, leaning in with her weight as you lurch to the side. The resulting impact causes the couple to jerk back and without the necessary balance they topple to the ground.

The crowd roars.

“Motherfucker,” you hear Clarke huff under her breath, and you try and fail to wipe the smirk from your face.

It’s awkward running with someone on your shoulders, you realize. You’re scared she’ll fall off, but if the numbness you’re beginning to feel in your arms is any indication as you step through a rows of tires spread out past the twenty yard-line, you think she’ll be okay.

You hear a chorus of shouts among the cheers from the stands and the slightly unnerving laughter behind you, but you don’t look back, keeping your focus on putting one foot in front of the other. You stumble out of the last tire and Clarke’s free hand is quick to tangle itself into your shirt to keep herself upright. It rubs roughly against your collarbones, and if nothing else it reminds you to breathe.

“ _Lexa_ ,” she says a little breathlessly, releasing her hold. You feel her shift to glance at the commotion behind you, and you’re not sure if she’s scolding you or warning you as you sprint headlong into a barrage of standing football dummies.

They’re placed close together, which is good for you if a bit ridiculous to think about. Blue, red, yellow, red, blue--they pass in a blur, knocking against your elbows and Clarke’s knees. Somewhere to your left you have a feeling someone is close behind and when you burst through the thick of it you feel a little disorientated. The other couple overtakes you, taking advantage of your sudden stupor, and you know that means the others are not far behind.

You don’t remember the rest. It flies by as you attempt to gain back what you lost, unaware of much besides Clarke urging you on and the finish line not ten yards away. You come in second and you don’t realize you’ve finished until Clarke’s gleeful yelp, too focused on getting back the air you lost in that last made dash. She drops the beachball unceremoniously in favor of wrapping her arms around your neck and it only makes it harder to breathe. The sudden stop in forward momentum and the enthusiasm of Clarke’s excitement however, is all it takes to cause you to trip.

It’s much like crumbling, undignified and maybe a bit embarrassing. You manage to land somewhat on your butt, leaning heavily on your left arm with Clarke draped over your right shoulder and half in your lap. She’s laughing though, this bubbly thing that’s more a snort as she tries to pull herself the rest of the way over your shoulder. To little success. You try to help her and she nearly elbows you in the face.

She rolls off eventually, somersaults onto her back in the grass, her head near your thigh. She’s red in the face, hair wrestled free from the hat that had tumbled off just moments ago, and her chest heaves in gulps of air under her nearly untucked up button-up, but her smile -- god, her smile.

You lean over, blocking out the sun, breath coming in much more manageable intervals and wait for things to settle. Around you, a few more couples come running in and they’re careful to keep clear of the both of you. It’s a hard won break and you’ve earned these few moments of respite.

It’s a moment or two before Clarke finds the wherewithal to move, taking one last deep breath before propping herself up on her forearms. She smiles at you this time, little bits of grass in her hair, and it’s almost as if you’re the only thing that matters to her.

Standing, you brush the dirt from your palms on your jeans, and you pretend you don’t notice the way she watches you. Casually, cautiously. The curiosity in her eyes is hard to mask and you don’t think she cares. You bend to pick up her hat, smacking it against your thigh to dislodge the bits of dirt and grass and when you offer her your hand there’s no hesitance when she takes it.

“Thanks,” she says, finally back on her feet. She’s close and her words are soft and you give back her hat wordlessly. She flexes the bill until she’s satisfied with the feel, and you brush a few blades of grass from the strands of her hair. The grin that captures her lips is slow and soft like honey, and you’re surprised by the way it has you yearning. “What a way to kick things off, am I right?”

“I don’t do things moderately,” you say, tilting your head and taking the time to observe her back.

She looks up at you, amused. “Neither do I.”

Clarke turns the hat around in her hands, fiddling with its weight that she’s so suddenly taken by. You see the decision she makes then though. How it begins with this little nod and the determined set to her lips, and how it ends with her hat on your head.

It’s the moment you realize you want to know what it’s like to kiss her.

 

* * *

 

You’re herded back towards the other side of the field before you have a chance to really think about those thoughts. That doesn't mean you let go of Clarke’s hand even though the opportunity presents itself. You quite like how she twines her arm with yours and the gentleness she has as her thumb passes over your knuckles, soothing. It’s unconscious, like breathing, and so is the small peck you press to her temple as you wait--offhand and it surprises even you. You pull away, pretending to focus your attention back on the emcee.

The problem with that is, you find you only half pay attention. The announcements are background noise compared to the softness of her touch and you have to wonder if she’s aware of what she’s doing to you. It’s a tragedy then, that Clarke lets go of your hand long before you’re prepared for it and you look at her in mild confusion as she slips her fingers from yours. She gives a small shake of her head, brows knit adorably as if to ask what’s wrong, and you find it’s hard to voice the truth.

You watch as she accepts a blindfold from one of the event staff as he makes his way through the remaining couples and there’s no hesitation as she goes about securing it round her face, blocking her eyes. When she lets go it slips down over her eyes and this low laugh escapes you before you have a chance to reel it back in.

She looks at you disappointingly but lets you position her in front of you as you go about untying the knot she made.

“This is--” you give a generous tug and it holds tight “--quite the feat you’ve managed here, Clarke.”

“It’s tougher than it looks,” she says. You can’t see her eyes, but you can see the smile that curls the ends of her lips.

“I’m sure,” you mutter back, struggling for a few more seconds until the knot gives and you’re able to pull the fabric free.

You keep Clarke close as you reapply the blindfold to her eyes, laying it gently across the bridge of her nose and over her eyes. You secure it with a simple knot, careful to avoid getting the strands of her hair caught in the tangle.

“Everything feel okay?” you ask, running your fingers through her hair a few times to tame the mess you made. She doesn’t bring attention to it and you drop your hands from her hair before they betray you and they drift down to her lower back.

“Fine,” she says, and her head turns towards your voice. “It feels fine.”

You smile and it’s something you’re glad she can’t see. “How many fingers am I holding up?” Your hand near her back stays where it is, too content with the contact as your are. The other however, doesn’t move from your side. It’s a simple thing to forget to mention.

She hums, even though you’re sure she’s rolling her eyes at you from behind the blindfold. “Four.”

“Good guess.” You watch her lips curl into a grin, only vaguely aware of her left hand as it finds the fabric of your loose shirt and holds on. But you are all too aware of the feelings it ignites in you. “But no.”

Clarke huffs, though she looks unbothered by the development, stepping in closer so that she’s just shy of touching you. She smells like too much sun and the warmth it settles in you simmers just below your skin. If Anya could see you now, you’d never hear the end of it.

“Do you trust me?”

Clarke shrugs, leaning forward so that her nose bumps your shoulder. “Sure,” she says, the word muffled by your shirt. “I trust you.”

The noise over the microphone drowns out the words you don’t get to say, and Clarke picks her head up from where it was tucked against you. Her eyebrows furrow, concentrated, and you figure you should do the same.

There’s seven items down by the stage about a hundred feet away and while you and the remaining fourteen couples had rested and prepared, the event staff had taken the time to litter the open space with a new set of obstacles. Still mostly random football equipment (and a couple blow up halloween decorations) it doesn’t change the fact that you’ll have to guide Clarke through it by word alone.

You lead Clarke to the starting line, keeping hold of her hand until the emcee announces the countdown to start. When you let go, she looks a little lost without a tether to you, but there’s no time for reassurances as the air-horn sounds and the chaos erupts once again.

“Clarke--”

She locks on to your voice immediately, sight trained in your general direction. Among the slew of other voices, you wonder how she managed it, but she wastes no time in moving towards you. Her determination is to be admired at the very least.

“Clarke, slow down.”

“Not helping,” Clarke says in return, voice strained and arms outstretched, but she heeds your suggestion. “We don’t have forever, Lexa, where am I supposed to go?”

You take quick stock of your surroundings--the other stumbling couples, the tires and football dummies and random beachballs--and come to a quick conclusion. Just because you can’t lead her through it yourself, doesn’t mean you can’t walk it with her.

You stand in front of her, counting your steps until you can’t move forward anymore, a large blue football dummy blocking the way. “Six steps forward,” you call back to her. “No--no,” and she stops, “--no turning, just forward.”

Clarke huffs, but starts back up immediately, careful to keep in a straight line, and you get out of her way. She stops a bit short of the dummy, but for the most part you’d consider it a success. “Now what?”

“One big sidestep to the right,” you reply, and then you start all over again.

There’s a process to it, an almost rhythm that the two of you settle into as you make your way through the makeshift course piece by piece and Clarke listens intently. Without touch it’s a slow careful pace. By the time your feet away the crowd is a constant stream of shouts and you struggle to be heard over the chorus.

The moment she picks up the stuffed animal by the stage, the first sound of the air-horn blaring out across the practice field, and she tugs down the blindfold to see the evidence in her hands, the realization is slow to come. But when it does, it’s all consuming.

Clarke looks to you with wide disbelieving eyes and then back to the toy in her hand and lets out a little scream. Her body buzzes with energy, high off the feeling, and hurls herself at you, arms cinched around your neck and pulling the air from your lungs.

You stumble a few steps back, your right hand reaching up to stop her hat from falling off your head while the other finds its place around her waist. It keeps the two of you upright in the rush that follows. It doesn’t temper her excitement, however. In fact, it heightens it, and she bounces on the balls of her feel while her hug reaches bone breaking levels. You feel as if you’ve run another mile, but you consider the reward worth it.

“Clarke,” you say, and it's breathy from the air you can’t seem to inhale and she pulls away still holding your hand.

She studies you for a moment before shifting her attention to the field as the other couples snag the remaining items to qualify them for the next round. There’s a fire in her eyes and it burns when she turns back to you. “I think we can win this.”

You exhale and it escapes quietly among the noise, but you watch her and it’s her windswept hair, flushed cheeks and bright eyes. Her breathing comes in long steadying inhales, as if she’s collecting all the courage there deep in her gut. You wonder if that’s how it works; through sheer force of will.

“Does that mean you doubted me before?” you say, teasing, and she tugs the bill of the hat down over your eyes. Warmth floods to your chest and a smirk is quick to steal your lips. You clutch her hand tighter, but when you tilt the bill up again, she’s not looking at you anymore.

It's the moment you feel most lost in her.

 

* * *

 

You have this odd sense of dread when a small part the field is cleared in front of the platform and the staff hands out blindfolds to the remaining contestants. Clarke offers to tie it for you, slightly smug, and you decline the offer only because having her hands in your hair sounds like the beginning of a disaster. You wait until the last possible minute though, when they’re leading Clarke away and suddenly you find you’d rather be staring at the inside of a black cloth than watching her walk away from you.

It’s a bit dramatic to think, yes, but it feels like the truth.

You don’t quite know what’s going on but you let yourself be led, pliant as someone places you in an indeterminable spot on the field. The wait isn’t long though and you’re thankful. It's hardly a minute later when the microphone crackles and the man’s familiar voice picks up over the speakers.

“This is it, ladies and gentlemen. The ultimate test. The couples must find their way back together. Without sight, without sound. Only touch.” the crowd ohhhs and wolf whistles and you roll your eyes behind the blindfold. “You have five minutes. Good luck.”

The first hand you hold is large, calloused, and the touch lasts no longer than five seconds before the both of you let go and move on. The second is smaller, slender, and it makes you pause. Your mouth opens slightly, but you remember yourself, closing it before anything has a chance to make it out. They hold you too tight and it takes them a moment to realize you’re not holding them back.

The third… The tips of their fingers finds your arm--the point of your elbow, fingers cold and hesitant. they trail down the inside of your forearm and it feels like forever, but when she folds her hand into yours, her thumb brushing softly over your knuckles, you accept it gently.

Something in you flutters, right there in your chest. High and light and it’s a bit like losing the ability to breathe. Like having the wind knocked from your chest, but carefully, and how it fills again, softly. So you step in closer and breathe in, pressing your lips softly to her temple.

She squeezes your hand tighter and that’s the end of that.

(somewhere off in the stands you hear a few people cheer and it’s enough to quirk your lips against her skin)

You don’t know how long you stand there, but it's probably barely minutes, and when you get the okay, you hook a finger around the blindfold and tug it down. Clarke’s eyes are the first thing you see. Blue and a hint of sun. She raises your linked hands into the air, a triumphant gesture, and you can’t help but laugh when the crowd seems to agree.

The both of you, along with the two other couples who passed, are herded up onto the stage once things settle. Clarke tugs you, your linked hands hanging between the two of you, as she bounds up the steps with you in tow. The grin hasn’t left her face since the little show-off down on the field and it only grows under the attention. You’re the first up onto the stage and you move down to make room for the others.

The emcee starts with the couple closest to the steps. You recognize them to be the couple you saw at the beginning. The fire is still very much evident, but there’s a softness in the way the man has his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder, her body tucked comfortably into his side, her arm slung low around his hips. He catches you watching, and the knowing smile and quirked brow he shoots back at you makes you feel just a tad self-conscious. But there’s not much to look at besides Clarke, and the time it takes to succumb to that notion you already feel like you’ve proven his point.

So you don’t deny it, idly tucking a wayward strand of hair behind Clarke’s ear. At least not to yourself.

“And who have we here?”

The suddenness of the words surprises you and you turn your attention to the emcee and the microphone he reaches towards Clarke. There’s not an ounce of hesitation on her face.

“Clarke,” she says, and you can tell she’s enjoying this far too much. “This is Lexa.”

“And how long have you two been together?”

Clarke pulls a little away to look at you, amusement stretched wide across her face, carried in the apple of her cheeks and the grin she tries to fight off and the words just kind of fall out your mouth. “It feels like forever.”

The emcee laughs, nudging you with his elbow. “Is that good or bad?”

“Definitely good,” you reply, still focused on Clarke and that almost awed look she’s giving you.

“Do you think you have what it takes to win?”

You acknowledge him finally. “Yes.” There’s no hesitation in you either.  
  
“What do you think?” he boasts, turning to address the audience. “Who should take home the coveted title?”

A mess of noise surrounds you, rising up, and it’s hard to make out heads or tails of anything. But what you can hear are chants of ‘kiss, kiss, kiss,’ echoing from the stands and its metronome is a steady beat amongst the growing chaos.

Satisfied with the reaction, the emcee turns to you and the other couples, grinning. “Well, you heard the crowd. Who’s first?”

The couple at the opposite end doesn’t wait, the small woman taking hold of her boyfriend by the collar of his shirt and dragging him down. He doesn’t seem to mind at all, smiling against it and pushing back when the surprise wears off and the reaction from the stands is immediate.

There’s whistling and hoots from friends in the stands and a middle finger courtesy of the girl wrapped around her boyfriend, but from what you can discern from the energy, it’s all in good fun.

The second couple, a tall, shy young man and his equally tall girlfriend, share a soft kiss that ends far too quickly for the audience's liking, but the girl laughs, hands cupping the back of her boyfriends head and leaning in again to peck his flushed cheeks with a quick, thankful kiss.

It’s when the noise dies down again that you realize there’s no one left but you.

Before you can comprehend it, Clarke takes you by the hips with such bravado you momentarily lose your train of thought, eyebrows wiggling in an attempt at alleviating the sudden tenseness she must feel in you. There’s a lopsided little tilt to her lips, but she waits for you, the crowd silent and watchful, and if you weren’t sure before, you are now.

You probably love her and the craziness of that thought doesn’t scare you as much as it should.

You cup her cheeks in your hands, and you feel more than hear the soft gasp she takes. You’d swear you could feel it under the tips of your fingers as you lean in, all slow and tortuous, noses touching first. Her breath fans across your mouth, uneven and a little bit nervous. Or perhaps that’s you, because you’re sure it’s her who closes the last few centimeters like she can’t take the thought of waiting a second longer and the cheer that erupts from the crowd is lost somewhere in the mess of your mind.

Maybe, you think. Maybe she’s just as breathless as you.


	2. Chapter 2

Clarke’s off campus apartment is cleaner than you expect. It’s bright and open, with a table littered with a multitude of books and a pile of shoes on the rug near the entryway. A mix of heels, sneakers, and flip flops that Clarke had to kick aside when you showed up at her front door. It feels like a home. Warm and welcoming and whole.

You tuck yourself into the corner of the counter with a hot cup of coffee, by the fridge and out of way as Clarke goes about fiddling with her new machine. The smell is permeating, rich and strong, but you at least you find it more tolerable than the taste.

She had invited you over to celebrate, though you’re beginning to see that ‘celebrate’ is simply another word for coffee.

“Are you ready for this?” she asks after her own cup is poured and steaming. She holds it out like it's some tankard filled with beer and not a normal cup of joe, some cream, and two tablespoons of sugar. “To us.”

“To us,” you repeat, clinking your mugs together gently. You bring it to your lips for show, taking a small sip, but your eyes don’t leave her. She holds it close with both hands, inhaling the steam with a happy sigh that she let’s linger a little too long to be normal. It’s far more endearing that it has any right to be.

She hums low at the first taste, eyes closing briefly, savoring it. It’s a few moments before she lowers the cup again. “Have I thanked you yet today?”

“Yes.” You smile, unable to help the satisfying ache that settles in your cheeks. “Twice.”

“Well, thank you. Again,” she says, looking you in the eye, and it takes all of you not to glance at her lips. “I really mean it.”

“You’re more than welcome, Clarke.”

 

* * *

 

You’re sweaty and breathing hard when you finally decide to take a break, peeling off the mesh fencing mask and setting it beside you on the bench. The first few unrestricted breaths you take fills your lungs and it’s a lovely feeling.

“How’s your girlfriend?”

Anya watches you with barely contained amusement, taking a seat next to you as you dig through your equipment bag under the bench for a towel in lieu humoring her with a response. Sifting through an extra pair of gloves and tape for your hands, you end up finding it in the corner side pocket instead, and you give it a quick shake before running it over your face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say finally, moving to rub the back of your neck with the towel before tossing it back in the bag at your feet.

You hear rustling, and you turn to watch Anya produce the weekly paper from where she had it hidden rolled up under her opposite arm. There, on the front page, is a picture of you and Clarke. It’s a little off center, but you’re stomach to stomach, your hands on Clarke’s cheeks, hair a little wild and there’s no question what it is you’re doing. The caption reads: ‘art major Clarke Griffin and poli sci graduate Lexa Woods locked lips this Thursday to win Polis U’s official unofficial King and Queen Competition. They are the first LGBT couple to win since its installment.’

“You’re famous,” Anya says, monotone, but her eyes sparkle in the way you’ve come to learn as amusement. “And I can’t believe I’m the last person to know.”

You take the paper from her, scanning the article briefly. It’s mostly a recap of the past week’s homecoming festivities. “There’s nothing to know,” you say, glancing at her, but by the look on her face, Anya doesn’t believe you. “She’s not… We’re not together.”

“Tell that to everyone else," Anya says, poking the paper you hold in your hands, and the thin line of her lips quirks up into a grin.

 

* * *

 

It’s quiet in Clarke’s apartment on Tuesdays. Midday, just after one, and it’s warm and cozy and you have nothing else to do. You had to reschedule practice for tomorrow thanks to the basketball team’s unannounced gym takeover and there really wasn’t much else you could do. It did leave you with some free time, though. The sun slips in over the coffee table through the small terrace doors, and you enjoy watching the shadows that stretch as a result. It’s one small reprieve from the hecticness this week has seemed to accumulate.

Clarke joins you after a few minutes, cradling a mug, and she forgoes the sofa in favor of taking a seat on the floor with you. It’s warmer in the sun, you assume, and you prop your head in your hand, studying the way her hair glints golden in the light.

“What’s on the agenda?” she asks once she’s settled, resting both her elbows on the table-top. She has on this loose sweater, the sleeves long, and she uses them to safely hold the scalding cup with two hands.

You give a halfhearted shrug. You always end up feeling a little lost on the days you can’t practice, missing the weight in your hands and the familiarity of the strip, and Clarke’s place seemed like the best alternative. If only to avoid Anya’s needling. “I’m not sure.”

Clarke takes a sip of her coffee, savoring the taste for a second before placing her mug down on an old, already stained napkin. She ruffles through a bit of the mess gathered in piles on the coffee table, plucking an impressively sized workbook out from under the clutter.

She opens to a page bookmarked by a blank piece of lined paper. “How good are you at physics?”

You squint curiously at her. You took calculus last year just as a prerequisite, but you’re not sure if it will help you now. “Why?”

She nudges the workbook closer to you. “Help me?”

You place a hand over the page, dragging the book closer to you. Flipping through a couple of pages bring things back into focus, though most of it remains stubbornly in that fuzzy area at the back of your brain. “I mentioned I’m a graduate student, right? Political science.”

“Yeah.” She’s looking at you with this barely there smile, the corner of her mouth upturned in a little curl. It’s like she already knows you’re going to say yes.

“What questions?”

Clarke’s smile spreads, and she scoots closer to the corner of the table you share. “Page 32, one through seven.”

“I probably won’t be much help.”

She shrugs. “I’d rather suffer with a buddy.”

 

* * *

 

Clarke’s left-handed, you notice. The two of you silently squabble over arm space, nudging each other’s elbows out of the way while trying to focus on the work spread out in front of you. She tries her hardest not to let you see her smile.

(You can hear it in her voice though)

“What’d you get for number 7?”

“47.4 meters per seconds,” you say. You have your head in your hand again, the pencil Clarke found you tapping a light beat against the table.

She bumps your arm playfully and the pencil tumbles from your hand. You reach for it as Clarke goes about vigorously erasing her work. “I thought you said you weren’t good at this.”

“It might be wrong.”

She dusts the eraser shavings from the paper and onto the table, glancing at you with an exasperated quirk of her brow. “You weren’t wrong the other six times, I doubt you’ll be wrong now.”

Once her workspace is clear, Clarke peeks over your arm at your paper and you roll your eyes, pushing it closer to her. “You have to equate the potential energy of the bow to the kinetic energy of the arrow.”

You gently brush her hand out of the way, finding a blank spot on her paper. “The potential energy of the bow is equal to one half K times X squared. K is the stiffness of the bow and X is the amount the string is stretched. Therefore--” You fill in as you go, the scratch of your pencil loud in the moments between. “-- the potential energy is 56.25 joules.”

You shift a line down. “Kinetic energy is one half mass times velocity squared. You know the mass of the arrow and you know the potential energy of the bow, so since kinetic energy is equal to potential energy, you simply solve for velocity.” Your pencil finally stills, and you turn to study the gentle furrow to clarke’s brow, the way her hair stumbles over her shoulder--the dim glow it has in the waning light. “Does that make sense?”

She nods slowly, but you wonder if she’s just trying to convince herself. “Clarke.”

Clarke’s eyes find yours for a moment, but she’s quick to look away. “No, yeah, I uh -- I get it.”

“Are you trying to convince me, Clarke?”

Clarke snorts, pushing the hair away from her eyes. She sets the tip of her pencil back on the paper, picking up where you left off, and the quiet click of her calculator keys fills the resulting silence. She shoots you a look not a moment later, mouth pursed, eyes judging. “47.4,” she mutters, scribbling the answer. “Never, ever, let me take a math based science class ever again.”

“The real question is why you thought you should to begin with.”

Clarke shrinks a little bit. “It fit my schedule better than biology.”

“Rookie mistake.”

She turns away, a smile forming as she cleans up the multitude of papers spread out over the coffee table. “Same time next week?”

“Sure.”

 

* * *

 

The gym is loud, a cacophony of triumphant shouts and buzzes that sound off on the speakers. You sink into en guard, sabre poised, and everything else besides your opponent fades away--their breathing, the angle of their shoulders, the stretch of their stance. It’s quick from the moment you settle, when the sound of the starting buzzer rings and you lunge, aiming for the opening you see in the guard.

With a yell, your hit lands at their neck and they stagger backwards from the suddenness of your advance, feet fumbling. You reign in the slack, pulling yourself back and returning to the en garde line, allowing yourself a small bounce on your heels before settling into poise.

The second bout begins quicker than the first, your opponent taking the initiative to attack. He seems unsure what to do with the right of way now that he has it, flicking the blade of the sabre to knock against yours, testing. It makes his lunge easy to read, that long reach of his arm as he aims for your chest. You parry inward, knocking the blade aside and immediately stretch forward. The tip of your sword hits his shoulder, sinks and bends, and you can pinpoint the exact moment he caves in defeat.

“Watch your hands, Aden,” you say, and the tension eases from your muscles as you watch him remove his mask with a huff.

He runs a hand through his hair, the sweat causing it to stick up and fall in amusing ways, and glares at you half-heartedly. “Yeah, yeah.”

You sigh as you take off your mask and you tuck it under your arm, the gym air cool against the sweat collecting near your hairline and the underside of your neck. “You can’t let defeat keep you from trying.”

He undoes his glove, pulling the velcro apart. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“I didn’t get this position because I was good--” his eye roll is pronounced and yeah you probably deserved that, “I worked hard for it. I trained. Skill is a testament to time.”

“Doesn’t make you any less of a natural.”

“You’re a freshman, Aden. You put in the time and the results will follow.” You see the little curl of his lips, that reluctant optimism at your unintentional praise.

“Captain!”

Your head turns at the sound, but not without a glance back at Aden to make sure he doesn’t run away. He seems amused that you feel the need to, but obediently stays put as Ryder makes his way through the throng to you.

He’s nearly half a foot taller than you, and built like a bear in breeches and a tank-top, nearly too stocky for fencing, but his swiftness belies his stature. He comes to a stop by your left hand side, waiting for you to finish whatever it was you were doing, but you urge him to continue.

“There’s, uh, someone looking for you,” Ryder says, and his apprehension at broaching the subject only lasts a second. “I think it might be your girlfriend?”

Your brow furrows, heat prickling in your cheeks. “Put that mask back on,” you say, pointing at a smirking Aden and then you go about unhooking yourself from the equipment. Once you’re free, you hand over your practice sabre to the new arrival, adjusting the helmet under your arm for a better hold. “Ryder, with Aden please. Keep an eye on his hands. I’ll be right back.”

Ryder nods once, grinning. Out of the corner of your eye you see Aden shaking his head.

You weave carefully through the thick of things, pausing to help a few of the new recruits with questions as you pass. It’s not until you catch sight of the double doors to the foyer that you notice Clarke standing awkwardly off to the side, watching a couple of veterans trade blows on the strip.

She does a double take when she finally spots you making your way over, adjusting the strap of her worn canvas bag over her shoulder. Her hair’s a little windswept without her hat, piled atop her head in a bun, but of course it works for her.

“Clarke,” you say as a way of greeting and it’s a little breathless. You wipe a bit of the sweat inching its way down your temple, suddenly self conscious.

“Hey,” Clarke replies slowly, and her eyes seem to get lost on you, lingering here and there before returning up to your face with a subtle shake of her head. It’s a moment before she says, “You fence?”

“I do.” You shift your weight to one foot, taking a quick mental note of the few people who have stopped practicing in an attempt to inconspicuously watch your conversation unfold. “I captain the university team.”

“Wow,” Clarke says, and it seems sincere enough. She looks around you and you step a bit to the side so she can see better. “Is it... is it fun?”

A small smile finally takes hold of your lips. “I would say it is fun, Clarke, but my opinion isn’t exactly unbiased.”

“How long?”

“How long what, Clarke?” you say, humoring her while trying to block out the muffled giggles you hear coming from somewhere behind you.

“How long have you been fencing.”

“Since I was fourteen.”

“So you’re a pro.”

“Not exactly.”

“But you don’t deny it.” she says, leaning closer and you take a small unconscious step back to compensate. You wouldn’t call her intimidating, not in that soft worn tee and frizzy hair and a bit of blue paint speckled under her chin. Overwhelming on the other hand…. that’s a possibility.

“Is there a reason you're here, Clarke?”

She seems to remember herself, blinking. “Oh, I uh….. you said you’d be at the gym, and since I was passing by I thought, you know--” she shrugs, “--that I’d see if you were still free tomorrow.”

“I am. As far as I know.”

“Do you want to meet me for some coffee? I’ve got a take home quiz that could use an extra pair of eyes.”

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“No,” she says, and you’ve never seen anyone so sure of themselves.

 

* * *

 

“What were you doing that day?”

You don’t look up until you finish jotting down the last few numbers. You find her studying you softly, and in the buzz of the small coffee shop down on fourth it feels more intimate than it has any right to be. “Reading?”

Clarke sighs loudly, folding her arms on the table and slouching. Apparently that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. “No, but really.”

“Reading,” you repeat more firmly, and she smiles faintly, realizing the quiet tease for what it is. She bumps her foot against your shin under the table and you go back to your work. “I was doing some research.”

“For?”

“A graduate studies class.”

“Ah,” Clarke hums, and you pause your writing to glance up at her. Her face is serious, but at least she’s no longer watching you, her eyes focused blankly on her own paper even though she holds the pencil limply in her hand. She catches you staring a second later and you’re quick to look away. “Sorry for dragging you away from work.”

You give a one-sided shrug, scribbling away. “You weren’t bothering me. It was a welcome change of pace.”

“I can help you out,” she offers, and you throw away pretenses to finally look her in the eye. “I may not be good with the specifics, but my mother used to say my bullheadedness would end up getting me somewhere in life.”

“I don’t think that was a compliment, Clarke.”

“No, but I decided to take it as one.”

This little pang shoots through your heart. “You don’t need to help me.”

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” She scoots a bit closer to the table and her chair screeches quietly in protest, leaning more on her folded arms. It’s as close as she can get to you, and then very softly she says, “You help me. Let me help you.”

Your mouth opens slightly but nothing comes out, so you close it and reconsider. She searches your eyes and it’s hard, you find, not to get lost in them.

 

* * *

 

The both of you struggle with electricity and magnetism. The coffee shop staff shoot you looks of pity as they go about their closing rituals, you and Clarke tucked in the corner booth with your heads in your hands, staring blankly at the pages of Clarke’s physics textbook. You save them the trip over by suggesting relocating to your apartment just a block away. It only takes one mention of your keurig machine for Clarke to begrudgingly accept, sweeping her books and utensils into her bag with little care.

The briskness of the november night takes the both of you by surprise when you step out the doors and onto the sidewalk. The wind hits you square in the chest, pulls at your clothes and bites at your cheeks. It takes your breath away, and you attempt to bury your nose into the flimsy short collar of your jacket with little success.

“Fuck,” Clarke says beside you, pulling the drawstrings of her hoodie tight and huddling further into her sweatshirt. Her pace unconsciously quickens to match your long quick strides.

She sticks close, keeping in time. At this time of night, other storefronts are closing, sweeping the trash and pulling in outdoor signs, and you try not to think about her shoulder brushing yours.

(neither of you take the initiative to widen the distance, the warmth both of you gravitate towards)

It takes you ten minutes to make it back to your complex and then up to your apartment. You open the door, keys jingling as you pull it from the lock and then make your way inside. Clarke follows just behind you, tentatively taking stock of the surroundings as you sling your jacket up on a hook by the door.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Clarke by the shelf of knick-knacks and photos near the entrance and you make your way over to the kitchen. “What would you like?”

Clarke jumps, turning towards you and inching her way over to the kitchen table, fingers curled around the strap of her messenger bag. “What do you have?”

You rummage through the cupboard above the coffee pot. “We have original or italian roast.” Both are Anya’s, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Clarke hums as she takes a seat, pulling things out of her backpack and arranging them on the table. “Italian roast, please.”

You pull the keurig cup from the cupboard and a mug, filling the latter with water from the sink and then pouring it into the reservoir. You’re not particularly experienced with the process, but you’ve seen Anya go through the motions on more than one occasion to make an educated guess at it. When you press the power button and everything seems to work as it should, you figure it was enough.

You linger by the counter as it fills, keeping an eye on Clarke as she resumes where the two of you left off. She looks tired, hair gone messy after being bundled up in her hood, and if you didn’t know her you’d say she was two minutes away from calling it quits and passing out at your kitchen table. But she’s Clarke, and every few minutes or so she’ll shake her head and open her eyes wide as if trying to force herself awake.

And it works. To an extent. Though the look on her face when you finally set down the coffee mug next to her hand, her eyes doing this endearing back and forth between it and you, is another story altogether.

“Thank you,” she says.

You slip into the seat on her left, folding yourself a little ungracefully, but it’s nearing 11:30 and you want this done just as much as her. “What do we have left?”

She takes a quick, grateful sip of her coffee before setting it aside and sliding the book between the both of you. “Well, I’d say we basically finished chapter twenty--” she winces subtly at the memories and you’d rather not have to relive those moments. “--so that leaves chapter twenty-one: electromagnetic waves and alternating-current circuits.”

You glance over the first page of the chapter and like everything else, it’s a mess of physics vocabulary and equations with too many variables. Flipping through the next few pages makes you grimace, and you nudge the book back over to Clarke. Being a little more than halfway through the semester, you’ve become more of a soundboard than anything else, a suffer buddy as Clarke put it a few months ago, information from years past but mere child’s play compared to what is being thrown at you now. You help as much as you can though and you hope it’s enough.

Thirty minutes later, though, and it feels like you haven’t budged an inch.

“So if the voltage through the resistor is equal to the supply voltage then that would mean this is true--” Clarke jots a few equations down, waiting until you nod to continue. “--and if we….set this….”

You pick your head up from your hand as Clarke’s voice tapers off, eyeing the almost blank look that has fallen across her face. Possibly a side-effect from all the coffee, and you attempt to temper the impulse to reach out and draw her back. Luckily, it doesn’t last long.

“That’s it!” she exclaims, and you startle at the sudden increase in volume, sitting up straighter in your chair. Clarke looks at you, a wide giddy smile, and nearly upends herself from her seat to hug you, leaning awkwardly over the side of her chair, more one arm than the other. You return it awkwardly, your nose in her hair, and you miss the scent of it the moment she pulls away. “It’s the--thing! You know, the thing!” she says, a loss for words, intent on chasing her train of thought before it gets away.

In a way so are you. She gathers her bottom lip between her teeth as she concentrates and you can’t help but remember the softness of them pressed against your own, that little ghost of a smile you hope you hadn’t imagined. You blame it on the exhaustion as the time ticks past a quarter after midnight, on that little inkling of weakness you call imagination. It couldn’t hurt you more than you already allowed it to, after all.

She passes out just before one, and to be honest you’re not far behind. You had turned around after cleaning up the mess spread out around the kitchen to find her hunched over the table, head pillowed in her arms and snoring slightly. For a moment you watch her, over by the counter some ten feet away, and you feel safe. But you shake your head and sigh, picking yourself up to tidy the table and set her second (half finished) mug of coffee in the sink.

You manage to rouse her enough to shuffle on over to the couch, slipping off her boots once she’s toppled over onto the cushions. She lets out this little sigh that gets lost into the throw pillows, and she wiggles closer for comfort.

You wake up the next morning around eight to an empty couch and the blanket folded neatly on its arm. Besides Anya sitting at the table with this wide smirk, the only thing left is this little thank you note and an IOU scribbled on last night’s coffee napkin that you may or may not save for posterity.

(It has a smiley face on it, of course you save it)

 

* * *

 

Thanksgiving approaches faster than you can comprehend. Between the multiple papers for your graduate studies classes and an upcoming fencing tournament in January, it’s quite like being pulled in multiple separate directions at once, so you savor the peace while you can. With Anya in colorado visiting family for the long weekend and practices canceled until after the holidays, you settle in the wednesday night before with no plans but your butt and that couch and a couple of mixed drinks.

There’s a slew of indie films and documentaries that have been sitting in your queue for the better part of a few months and you plan on making the most of your self-enforced relaxation. That is, until you get the phone call.

You recognize the number as Clarke’s and you pick up before it has the chance to ring again.

“Clarke?”

“Lexa, hi,” she sighs. In the background you can hear muffled noises and something suspiciously close to Christmas music playing. “How are you?”

You stare blankly at the television, your paused program stuck on a close up of the african savannah. “I’m fine.”

The music continues, and it’s long drawn out seconds of santa baby before Clarke decides to talk again. “Can I come over?” she says it quickly, rushed and almost like there’s a high probability you’ll say no. Which is absurd to you. That she could think you would and her resulting silence seems to reinforce the thought because she’s quick to stutter, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t--”

“Do you need me to pick you up?” You set your feet down from where they were propped up on the coffee table, setting aside the blanket you had draped over your legs. She doesn’t answer right away and if it weren’t for the noise you would assume she’d hung up. “Clarke.”

“No!” she insists, a little forcefully, and she clears her throat. “No, I can -- I’m good. I can make it. Thank you. I’ll just...” she pauses, and you press your hand to your lips to stop yourself from smiling. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“I’m sure.”

“Can I bring anything?”

“Only if you want.”

“Okay. I’ll catch you in a little bit, then?”

“Sure,” you say. “I’ll catch you later.”

“Bye,” she mutters, almost shyly, and then she hangs up.

You haul yourself up from the couch, busying yourself with a menial task as the wait begins. There’s a few dishes in the sink that you clean and put away, but by the time that’s done you stand awkwardly by the kitchen table with little else to do. Everything is where it should be, the apartment is fairly clean, and you picked up an extra pack of italian roast keurig cups at the off chance that maybe something would happen, but here you are now, with something, and you’re not sure why you’re this nervous.

Or maybe you are and you just don’t want to admit it.

The intercom to your apartment sounds fifteen minutes or so later and you buzz Clarke up from the bottom floor. Clarke comes in bundled up in a large sweater and a thick wool scarf, cheeks rosy from the cold, and bearing a six pack of pumpkin ale.

She shivers visibly, standing just beyond the door as she takes in the heat of your apartment, before holding out the beer. “I bought us some drinks.”

You stand aside to let her in. “That’s not coffee.”

Clarke elbows you as she walks past, right in the gut but gently and this small smile forms while you watch her set down the case on your counter. “I drink more than just coffee, thank you.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

She snorts, looking back at you challengingly as she fishes out a bottle from its containment and twists the cap off. “Oh, you better believe it.”

You join her by the counter when things settle. She takes a small sip and you stand close enough to see the way her ears peak through the blonde of her hair, red tipped and her flushed cheeks blotched from the sudden change in temperature. You gently touch her elbow, holding the contact for a second so she turns towards you. The blue of her eyes glows in the dim light of your apartment and you wonder if they find what they need when they look at you.

“Can I ask?” you begin tentatively. She doesn’t look away for a long moment, and you hope that means that line you're hesitant of still hasn’t been crossed.

“I wanted to get away for a moment,” Clarke says, shrugging. You have half a mind to realize that that’s not even the half of it, but you don’t push. She does the rest on her own. “My friends have this thanksgiving get-together on the Wednesday before. We eat, get a bit drunk, have fun. You know, it's for friends. They’ve always been more like family to me, anyway.”

She tilts her head back, looking up at your ceiling before glancing back down at her beer. The bottle twists in her hands, fingernails picking at the corner of the label.

“And then he shows up and I kinda just wanna….” she sighs heavily, the words lost, and her grip tightens on her drink until she forces herself to relax. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to --” she shakes her head, “you were the first person I thought of. Wells was more than happy to help me out.”

“That’s okay.” You gesture to the living room, the television still paused. “I was watching a documentary. Or did you have something else in mind?”

“No,” she breathes, and the relief on her face is clear. “That sounds great.”

“Popcorn?”

Clarke moves away from the counter, patting her stomach with her free hand. “I’m good for now. Thank you though.”

You nod, plucking a beer from its cardboard holder and twisting off the cap. Clarke makes her way over to the couch, stopping halfway to look over her shoulder to make sure you’re following, and you do once both the caps are tossed into the recycling. She huddles into the far right corner of your couch, pulling her feet up after she slips off her shoes, her nose buried in her scarf, and you hear her sigh.

“Is it too cold?” you ask as you take a seat next to her, reaching for the remote that you left on the coffee table.

“No, it’s perfect,” she says, muffled. Not too long later she comes back up for air, taking a quick sip of beer. She sinks back into that warmth within seconds though. “What did I miss?”

You look back to the television. “The baby ostriches made it to the watering hole,” you say.

“Africa?”

“Yes.”

She snuggles further into your couch. “Oh good. That means I missed the scary part.”

You don’t bother tempering your smile, pressing play on the remote and settling in yourself. The both of you fall into a comfortable silence, quietly sipping your pumpkin beer as life on the african plains unfolds itself in your living room. You take a break to microwave a bag of popcorn halfway through the second episode, and when you return you sit shoulder to shoulder with the bowl in your lap.

(The warmth you feel when neither of you make a move to widen that distance after the popcorn is finished and the empty bowl moves from your lap to the table is… comforting. Content. And a whole bunch of other things your fuzz filled brain can’t manage to comprehend)

“The Dead Poet’s Society,” she says hopefully as you scroll through the main menu some indiscernible time later (you learn watching episodes of Africa back to back tend to have that kind of effect). You turn to look at her and the world outside is dark, but you feel light. It's no wonder as to why. “What about that?”

“It’s sad, Clarke.”

“I know.” She shrugs and you feel it. “It’s good though.”

It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

 

* * *

 

Clarke leaves late in the night. She wakes you up, her hand gentle on your shoulder and you feel not all quite there, half draped across the arm of the couch as you are. Her eyes are blue, this soft calm blue, and you find at that moment that you’d be okay with never looking at anything else.

“Is it okay if I leave the beer here?” she asks in a whisper, leant in close, and her voice fills your head.

You manage a nod, blinking, your tongue dry and heavy in your mouth. Everything about you feels sluggish, mind fuzzy and one step behind, and you don’t like it. The way her touch disappears, her hand slipping as she pulls away, tucking an errant strand of hair that had fallen across her eyes.

You don’t like feeling like you’ve already been left behind.

“Clarke.” You hope you don’t sound as desperate as you feel.

She smiles this small gentle thing, and oh the way your heart clenches. “Have I thanked you today?”

“Yes,” you say without hesitation, without thinking, sitting up as if to follow. Because why would you need to. Your voice is hoarse and she smiles a bit wider at the sound and a tiny part of you hopes it convinces her to stay.

“Thank you,” she says anyway, half of a shrug. She buries her face into the scarf wrapped around her neck, hands deep in her pockets and this lazy slouch to her shoulders. “Get some sleep okay?”

It’s a few seconds before she makes a move for the door. There’s little you remember after that.

 

* * *

 

“Here,” Clarke says, holding out a cup of coffee and you glance at it, looking up from your notebook at that mug with the silly reindeer--Clarke’s soft hands and her chipped nail polish. You can’t believe she walked all the way from her apartment to the campus library with that thing and you find it’s hard to ignore that feeling that burns softly in the pit of your gut and you look away. That doesn’t deter her though. “Come on, you look like you need it.”

Your gaze rises and then falls, but ultimately you set your pencil down and accept the drink from her hands. “Thank you.”

She slides into the chair beside you, glancing over the books you have stacked in misshapen piles. To say she looks a little worried is an understatement. “How long have you been here?”

You tap her arm and she angles her wrist towards you, the face of her watch reading 4:37pm. “Six and a half hours.”

“Shit, Lexa,” she whispers, almost scolding. “Have you eaten at all?”

You think for a moment, but come up short. “No.”

Her lips purse into an almost frown, a displeased crease between her brows. Your face softens at the sight, this small, nearly nonexistent smile to your lips as you watch her expression sour minutely.

“Don’t give me that face,” she says.

You’re quick to avert your attention back to your notes. “I wasn’t aware I was making a face.”

Out of the corner of your eye she looks at you incredulously, a silent dare, but you don’t take the bait. You figure if there was ever a moment too close for comfort, this would be it. The harsh thud of your heart against your ribs is telltale enough.

“You need food,” she says a few moments later when you don’t acknowledge her further, her fingers touching yours. It’s distracting, but you don’t want her to stop. “Anya said you had practice this morning--”

That gets you to look up, and you blink owlishly. “You talked to Anya?”

“Yeah… I -- I kinda stopped by your apartment hoping to catch you.” she backtracks, shaking her head as if to remember. “She’s the one who told me where I could find you…. Is there something wrong?”

“No, I was just-- surprised.”

“She’s intense,” Clarke says.

You snort. “That’s putting it lightly, but yes, she is.”

“She would want you to eat.”

Your jaw drops slightly, watching Clarke fiddle with the sleeve of your sweater, as if pretending she didn’t just offhandedly threaten to use your roommate as leverage to twist your arm into getting you away from your work. When she glances up and your eyes meet the underhanded smirk is hard to miss.

You narrow your eyes at her. “Don’t bring her into this.”

She lifts her shoulders into a shrug. “Oops?”

“Did she put you up to this?”

“No, I’m more than happy to do that on my own.” She gives another tug, your sleeve now captive between her thumb and index finger. “Food?”

It takes a second, but you give in. “Sushi?”

“Sure, whatever you want.”

 

* * *

 

Clarke handles finals week almost as well as you do, which is to say she doesn’t. If it’s possible, she’s worse. You learned quickly that the people around her come first, and that doesn’t change even when she needs it the most. She’d run herself into the ground given the time, so when you get a call deep into finals week, you figure this is it.

It’s her number, from her phone, but the voice is too deep to actually be hers. You remember her mentioning Wells, her childhood friend and longtime (though sometimes reluctant) partner in crime, and when you show up to her apartment it’s him who opens the doors. It’s nice to finally put a name to a face.

You find there’s a gentleness to him that’s oddly relaxing.

“Thanks for stopping by,” he says, ushering you in quickly. You don’t get to offer much in return, feeling out of place by the door as he hurries to pack things from the kitchen table into his backpack.

You’ve been in Clarke’s apartment numerous times but it feels different now. Fuller, you think. To see a place with the people rather than simply their things. You watch as he goes through this mental list, checking to make sure he has everything, the pockets full and zipped, and then slings the pack over his shoulders.

“I’ve gotta run, but I really appreciate it. She was knocked out last I checked, but,” he shrugs, rolls his eyes, “who knows. She likes tomato soup and grilled cheese. Cheddar, not american. There’s kraft singles in the drawer, soup’s in the cupboard. She’ll tell you she likes it crispy but don’t, she’ll complain later that it hurts to swallow.”

He stills abruptly in the middle of the room as his mind wanders again. A shake of his head a second later brings him back. “Yeah, I think that’s it. Make yourself at home. If you need help just give me a call.”

And then he leaves with an awkward salute. The door closes shut behind him, the silence trickling in from it's hiding places and then familiarity along with it. The fridge hums, cars creep past on the narrow street below, this low murmur and general static, and you lower yourself into a seat and listen, the bag you brought with some busy work and books hanging limp from your shoulder.

You hear her before you see her. Some hours later after you’ve gotten comfortable in one of the kitchen chairs, a book propped open in your hand. It’s this tired shuffle of feet, of thick socks dragging sluggishly along the hardwoods. You chance a glance towards the hall and she appears around the bend in baggy sweats and a loose long sleeve shirt that’s rumpled and half twisted. Her blonde hair sticks out at random angles, a little gnarled and in desperate need of some attention. You watch her attempt to tug her hand through, a fight that she ends up forfeiting, and you look away before you’re caught.

It takes a lot of self-discipline to keep your eyes on your book. “What are you doing out of bed, Clarke?”

Out of the corner of your eye, she startles comically, hand moving to clutch at her heart. She stays like that for a few long seconds, relaxing when the intrusion among her apparent solitude has been deemed unthreatening. That doesn’t stop her from vigorously rubbing her eyes, blinking in quick succession once she’s done only to find her surroundings the same and the dreams very much over.

“I was--” Clarke starts, voice more than raw, and you finally allow yourself to actually look. You notice the bags under her eyes, that extra color to her cheeks and neck. She takes quick stock of the rest of the apartment, perhaps wondering what other surprises it may have in store, but her sights keep settling on you. “What are you doing here?”

Careful to keep your page, you close your book. She seems unsure of herself, legs a little wobbly as she stands still in the middle of the hall, hesitant to move past the threshold that separates the bedrooms from the living space.

“I’m here for you, actually,” you reply.

“For me?” she croaks, pointing to herself.

“Are you hungry?”

She’s a bit taken back by the question, or maybe just surprised, and her hand drops to her side. Her mouth opens as if to answer, but nothing makes it out. She clears her throat instead, the pain evident in the dip to her brow, and bumps her closed hand against her thigh.

She nods.

(You wonder if she’s ever put herself first)

You gesture to the couch, and she wordlessly stumbles her way towards it, collapsing onto the cushions the second she’s close enough. For a moment she’s oddly still, face down on the couch and you briefly entertain the thought of checking her pulse, but not too long later her body quakes with the coughs she tries to hide into the pillows.

It’s pitiful, and yet in some way also endearing. You check on her while you go about finding the pots and pans and a skillet for the grilled cheese, glancing over your shoulder to find her still stubbornly face first in the pillows. She’s alive. If the small, occasional tremors are anything to go by, and her stubbornness makes you smile to yourself. You stir the tomato soup as you wait for the cheese to melt and you realize you’re right where you want to be.

She’s going to be okay. She won’t let herself be anything else.

You nudge her leg with your knee about fifteen minutes later with a plate of grilled cheese in one hand and a cup of tomato soup in the other. Her response is to peek from the confines of the throw pillows, eyes narrowed and slightly glossy with tears from coughing, and you shift slightly to place the plate and cup down on the coffee table behind you before turning back to her.

“Clarke,” you say, and her pout only gets bigger. “Can you sit up or do you want some help?”

Clarke shakes her head and you wait. She gets up slowly, pushing herself with the remaining strength in her arms and bringing her legs around until her feet are planted firmly on the floor. You hand her the plate with the little cup, and then reach for the remote that sits beside a messy pile of nail polish and old magazines. The first station you find is a late afternoon talk show and it’s mindless drone and audience laughter is a welcome addition among the static.

You backtrack towards the kitchen table after clarke takes her first bite of grilled cheese. She takes her time to chew, and you’re back with your book before she’s gotten through her second bite. You settle into the other corner, prop open your book against your leg, and pick up where you left off.

Whether or not you manage to comprehend what you’re reading, well. That’s a whole other monster. You get bits and pieces. Snippets of old government policies and other academic jargon that comes in second to the tiny bit of tomato soup collected at the corner of Clarke’s mouth that she wipes away with the side of her thumb.

Bits of the crust remain once she’s done, scattered over the plate and the empty bowl of soup. You flip through the next few pages, skimming the words and finding the next chapter too far away for your liking, so you lean forward to set it aside on the table and then reach for the plate in Clarke’s lap.

“Thank you,” she says, watching you as you stand.

You lift your shoulders in a small shrug. “What else are girlfriends for?”

She gives you this small lopsided smile in response and the swoop your stomach makes alights the butterflies resting there. You return it somewhat cheekily, embarrassed and unsure what to do in the wake of it, but you manage. Somehow, you manage.

You wander off to wash the plate and cup in the sink, taking your time so your insides have a chance to settle. The dishes--including the skillet and the pan of tomato soup--are spotless in two minutes flat and left to dry on the polka-dotted dish towel by the sink, and with nothing left to keep you, you make your way back to the couch.

Clarke has stretched out, head lolled back against the arm of the couch watching the television out of the corner of her eye. She spots you and attempts to adjust, but you wave her off.

You point at her legs. “Lift for a second?”

And she does, drawing her knees back towards her chest so you can take a seat. You guide them back over your lap once you’re good and Clarke sinks further into her slouch, chin nearly touching her chest.

“You are far too good to me, Lexa Woods,” she mutters practically into her shirt, but at least it seems as though her breathing comes easier. Her eyes droop closed, hands folded loosely together over her stomach, and you watch the rise and fall of her chest, your thumb absently rubbing back and forth across her shin.

 

* * *

 

  
Clarke (4:21pm): I passed!!!

(4:27pm): Congrats :)

Clarke (4:29pm): Celebrate? At the station around 7?

(4:30pm): I’ll meet you there

 

 

* * *

 

“So there’s this christmas party my friends are hosting,” Clarke starts one cold december afternoon, and you look up from your book. She doesn’t look back, seemingly enraptured by the television, but she does wiggle her toes that are tucked under your thigh for warmth.

You return your attention to your book when she offers nothing else beyond that, toying with the corner of the page. She wiggles her toes again though, and this time when you look up she’s waiting for you.

“Do you want to go?”

You tilt your head. “With you?”

“Uh...” Her mouth drops, a confused dip to her brows. “Yes...? With me. I thought--”

“I’m joking, Clarke,” you say and she purses her lips to stop herself from smiling, nudging you harder with her foot and you have let go of your book to steady yourself so you don’t topple over.

You push her back and Clarke laughs, holding on tight. You end up in a pile on the floor, between clarke’s legs and her hands at your back, the both of you in a bit of hysterics, and you don’t remember the last time you laughed like that.

 

* * *

 

The night of the party it is blistering cold and snowing faintly. Quiet uneven drifts that prickle your skin on contact and seem to burn. You and Clarke take an uber downtown to an off campus apartment housing, and the twenty or so feet that separate you from the front door when you pile out from the backseat are covered in five seconds flat, the both of you crowding into the foyer, Clarke pushing you in from behind.

“Christ,” Clarke breathes into your shoulder. Her hands lightly grip your waist, keeping you close for heat as you try to shake some warmth back into your limbs.

“It’ll be warmer upstairs,” you say, brushing the dusting of snow from your coat, waiting for Clarke to release you. She does eventually with one final groan, pressing her forehead into your back before stepping away and stuffing her mittened hands into her jacket pockets.

Music plays, muffled by the walls, and it grows steadily louder as you climb the stairs. The third and final floor has its doors open and people mill about outside and on the staircase to talk and enjoy a bit of quiet away from the main noise. More than a few say hi to Clarke, and she offers a small wave to the lot of them.

“Raven inside?” she asks, pointing.

A man reclined on the top step taps the lip of his beer bottle against his chin. “Last I saw she was mixing up shit in the kitchen.”

“Anyone throw up yet?”

He grins. “No, but you’re early.”

“Great. That’s just great, Murphy,” Clarke says, tugging you closer by the hand. “You’re helping me out if anyone does.”

His eyes roll and he shrugs, but you have a feeling that it's not a ‘no.’ “Isn’t that a girlfriend job?”

You catch gazes with him, and there’s a look of mischief in his eyes as he brings the bottle to his mouth for a sip. Clarke, however, doesn’t respond, and you don’t get much time to dwell on it before she pulls you into the apartment.

The actual apartment itself is a hallway and interconnected rooms, people collected in clumps and couples in corners. A stereo plays a collection of rock christmas music in the living room, the couch full and standing space slowly getting there as well, but you don’t get much time to observe. Clarke leads you to the end of the hall, opening a door that turns out to be a closet.

Clarke strips herself of her mittens, stuffing them in her coat pocket and then off comes the scarf and finally her jacket. She hangs them up on an available coat hanger before turning to you. “Jacket,” Clarke says, holding out her hand. “And anything I can start you off with? I’m going to see if I can quickly find Raven in the kitchen and say hi.”

You shrug out of your coat. ‘What are my choices?”

“Well.” She tilts her head. It’s a beat or two before she continues with: “You know, I’m not quite sure.”

“Surprise me,” you say, the corner of your mouth lifting in a small smirk..

Clarke nods her head. “Whisky it is.”

You eye her curiously, but her face is impassive and gives nothing away. “Sure,” you say, apprehensive, handing her your coat, and when she turns to hang it next to her own there’s the slightest of smiles on her face.

“Mingle,” she says once she turns around, her hand on your lower back and pushing. “I’ll come find you.”

You stumble forward, glancing back at Clarke who simply shoos you in the general direction of the living room, and you go somewhat reluctantly, looking back after a couple steps to find Clarke lost to the mess of people mulling about in the small kitchen. So you decide to wander.

There’s a couple faces you can pick apart from the crowd as vaguely familiar, though most likely they’re people you’ve run across cramming for finals week in the library. Not that the off chance of running into somebody you knew swayed your decision to come. Your social circle basically consists of Anya and the fencing club and that’s more than enough for you. So when a girl from across the room spots you, eyes widening, and immediately begins her trek through the throng, you wonder if there was something you missed.

You don’t recognize her, but she seems to recognize you. “Lexa?” she asks hesitantly, almost trying to hide behind a red singles cup she holds in her left hand.

“Yes?”

Her face changes immediately. “Oh my god, hi! It’s so nice to finally get to meet the girlfriend.” She holds out her hand and is quick to add, “I’m Niylah by the way, a friend of Clarke’s.”

“Oh,” is all you manage to say, unconsciously reaching for her hand, lost somewhere between the word girlfriend and it's relation to Clarke. Your brain short-circuits and it’s a second or two before it can reboot. Luckily she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah. We suffer through art history together. She talks about you all the time.” She lets go of your hand. “This is a little late, but congrats on the big win. I’ve been trying to get my girlfriend to run with me. So far it’s a no go, but maybe one day.” and she shrugs, a smile stealing its way to her mouth.

It’s an expression you’ve become rather familiar with. “It was certainly an experience.”

“With someone like Clarke I wouldn’t expect anything less.” She nudges you with her elbow, impish, but her face is quick to soften. She looks at you then, and there’s something in her eyes you can’t seem to place. Admiration? A bit of relief? She taps her fingers against her cup and her eyes dart away. “She could use someone like you though. To keep her grounded.”

“Niylah?”

Both of you turn at the sound and you spot Clarke just a few feet away, a drink in each hand. She steps in close to you, handing off your drink which looks suspiciously close to whisky, and then pulls Niylah into a one armed hug.

“It’s so nice to see you,” Clarke mutters into her hair, giving a tiny squeeze for emphasis.  
  
Niylah is quick to reciprocate. “The feelings mutual.” She pulls away slightly, face serious. “Quick--question six, Mrs. Edie’s exam. Renoir or Degas?”

“Degas,” Clarke says without hesitation and Niylah tips her head back and groans. Clarke pats her shoulder.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom and cry now.”

“Text me sometime?” Clarke says before she has a chance to escape off to the bathroom to mope, catching Niylah by the wrist. “We can catch up.”

Niylah smiles softly at her, and for a moment you think there’s more in common between the two of you than you realize. “You can count on it.”

You both watch her go, Clarke by your side, and you raise your cup to your mouth for the first cautious sip. It most certainly is whisky. You clear your throat and Clarke chances a quick glance, hiding her smile as best she can behind the rim of her cup. The second sip is easier than the first and you both wander into the living room to find a place to relax.

The second you’re through the threshold, Clarke gets waved over and you follow. The people on the couch scooch to make room until there’s space for both of you to sit, but the fit is still a tight squeeze. You end up half tucked behind her, Clarke’s arm overlapping yours, and she pats the back of your hand.

The old movie How The Grinch Stole Christmas plays muted on the television, and you find yourself watching it as Clarke carries on a conversation with her other neighbor. You’ve seen it before when you were young, and the nostalgia makes it easy to lose yourself in it. You quietly nurse your whisky, watching the poor dog tumble his way down the slippery mountain slope.

“You don’t have to drink it,” comes Clarke’s voice, soft, and you know better than to look, but you do anyway. Squished this close, you’re nearly nose to nose with her, and your eyes do this embarrassing back and forth between her eyes and then, for a fraction of a second, dip down to her lips.

You pull your gaze away quickly, focusing instead on her hand over yours and that subtle and subconscious graze of her thumb across your knuckles.

You give your cup a little swirl and the ice cubes shift against the plastic. “I like it,” you say, settling the cup back on the arm of the couch, held upright by your loose grip, and your attention returns to the movie.

“Still.” She pauses to watch you. “It’s not a problem. I can get you something else.”

But you don’t get to say anything else. The room is suddenly awash with wolf whistles and raucous laughter. It takes a moment to realize the entire room has its eyes on you--well, technically behind you, and you shift to look over your shoulder. What you find is a woman in a santa hat sporting the largest grin. It takes a second more to see the mistletoe hanging over your head.

“Raven,” you hear Clarke grit between her teeth.

The threat has zero effect, the mistletoe dangling on its string above your heads. “Come on, Clarke, don’t ruin christmas.”

“Raven,” Clarke repeats.

“Clarke,” Raven pouts. “Just one kiss? Your girlfriend is practically dying of loneliness.”

You don’t want to get pulled into this, but Clarke looks at you and it’s as if she doesn’t know what to say. The apology is written so clearly on her face it may as well be stamped across her forehead and you don’t know why it wedges this thorn into your side. She looks unsure and the longer she stares, the more the peanut gallery gathered around you eggs her on.

“Can I kiss you?” she asks, eyes resolute but her cheeks positively red. The person on her other side pokes her in the ribs and she swats it away, the blush stretching to her ears. She wrings the sleeve of her shirt in her fingers, avoiding your eyes as the chants of ‘kiss, kiss, kiss’ grow in volume in the wake of her question and the deja vu isn’t lost on you.

And you give her this smile. “Of course.” Because it’s nothing you haven’t done before.

(somewhere among the mess a voice shouts ‘gay!’ and yes. Yes you most certainly are)

She goes to cup your cheek but she hesitates and it’s just the tips of her fingers along your jaw. Your heart stops anyway, though. It trips over its own feet and stumbles and your breath hitches the moment you press together with her.

(her lips are as soft as you remember)

Your foreheads meet with a gentle thud and you exhale through your nose, content on letting the feeling last as long as she’ll let it. There’s a hesitancy in the absence of adrenaline and the second you feel her retreat you make no move to follow.

The show, no matter how brief, is more than enough to placate your audience, and once Raven moves onto the next couple by the stereo, the attention shifts and you’re left to your own devices.

That doesn’t mean you open your eyes. At least not right away, lingering as long as you can in the moment and the feelings left on the tip of your tongue.

“Sorry,” she mutters and you can feel it, her breath warm and smelling vaguely of peppermint schnapps.

“What for?”

You feel her shrug and you pry your eyes open, blinking a few times, and it's like being woken up from a good dream too early. But what greets you when you do, Clarke’s warm eyes and red cheeks still close, is a dream all itself.

“Things, I guess.”

You lean in without thinking, dipping to place a chaste kiss on her cheek. There’s the slightest movement as she accepts it without protest, quiet, blinking, shifting to study you softly afterward and you’d say the whisky made you brave. But it’s just one drink and there’s no one to blame besides yourself.

Clarke’s sighs, audible, and she leans into your side, resting her chin on your shoulder. The conversation drops and you watch the rest of the movie in relative silence, the noise from the party drifting as Raven and her band of followers roams room to room. It’s sometime after the credits when it finally dies down to an extent.

The kitchen remains a hubbub of noise, however. Glasses clatter, ice spills, people laugh. After a minute or two Clarke hauls herself up from the couch and you miss the weight immediately, so you pick yourself up and follow.

You get another set of drinks, watching as Clarke whips something up after shooing Raven away from the alcohol and you forget about the kiss halfway through your second mixed drink. You get caught up in a discussion about the education system with a group of student teachers, but Clarke remains a point of reference in the corner of your eye. She spends her time mothering a pair of incredibly drunk boys who can’t seem to stop giggling when they ask her for increasingly absurd drink names. They don’t notice when all she hands them is watered down juice.

“This is the good stuff,” one of them mutters, a pair of sunglasses askew on his head. The other laughs into his juice and Clarke rolls her eyes.

She finds you when they’ve finally passed out, hunched over on the island, their sleepy snores this quiet undertone among the kitchen noise. She steps close, presses her face to the back of your shoulder and you acknowledge her presence by turning your head, nudging her gently with your chin.

You have a few more drinks and then call it quits. The exhaustion settles in to stay sometime around midnight, and you want to leave before someone actually does puke and you and Clarke are left to clean up the mess. You go out into the hall where it's quiet to call an uber and then shuffle back into the apartment to find Clarke.

She’s back on the couch, smushed in the middle between Raven and the two drunk boys from earlier, watching the commotion with mild interest. She spots you over by the entryway in a matter of seconds and smiles, turning to say something to Raven. The other woman grins, drawing Clarke into a hug that is impossible to escape from and she succumbs to the inevitability. It lasts a minute at least, but Clarke manages to slip away after one last squeeze, pulling away just barely and then scampering over to your side.

Her hand finds yours and the world melts away and all you’re left with is just the two of you in that hall, the muffled music and laughter. The hallway is dark and your head is fuzzy and she’s already close enough to you that there’s no reason to reach out for her.

“Are we dating?” you whisper, almost a tease as you watch her shuffle through the closet for your coats.

“No,” she says, blunt despite the softness she manages to coat that word with. You find yourself staring at the redness in her cheeks--on the small upturn of her mouth and that tick of a smile, and you find yourself wanting to kiss her all over again. “No, we’re not.”

Your ride home drops her off first and you watch her amble up the sidewalk to her apartment through the frosted backseat window.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's all she wrote. hope you enjoy

She hasn’t told anyone. Or perhaps a more accurate description is that she doesn’t feel the need to clarify. You wonder if she thinks they’ll confiscate her coffee machine if they find out the winners of the Polis U’s couples competition were a couple of fakes. And it doesn’t particularly bother you. Half of the fencing team teases you about her, and by now they’re in deep enough that they probably believe it too. No matter what you say.

But with the emergence of the new year and January already in full swing, you don’t see her as often as you’d like. You’re neck deep in preparation for the state tournament late in the month and Clarke scrounges about for potential internships before the second semester of her senior year begins in earnest.

You make time though, in between it all, and you learn to savor it.

“How’s the knee?” Clarke asks, taking a seat beside you on the bench in the otherwise abandoned gym. She’s here to check up on you, no matter what she says, and she’s fresh from the outdoors, dressed warmly in a thick coat and scarf, blonde hair escaping in wisps from the wool beanie pulled low over her ears. There’s nothing you want more than to feel the warmth of her cheeks in your hands.

“Hurts,” you say instead, pulling the ice-pack off your knee only to set it back down within a matter of seconds, biting back a groan. A little bit escapes anyway and you clench your teeth, clearing your throat. “--but I’ve felt worse.”

“Uh huh,” Clarke mutters, eyeing you warily and you avoid her gaze, balancing the ice pack so you can undo the ties to your plastron and peel it off. You drop it into your bag, your chest protector quick to follow, and you peel the damp white t-shirt away from your skin, fanning the fabric in an attempt to dry the sweat that lingers.

You finished your last session ten minutes ago, but your heart beats a steady rhythm against your ribs. Gustus had warned you about over-exerting your knee so close to the tournament, and while he may have been right, nothing beats the satisfaction exhaustion brings. That bone deep ache and a soreness that will last. You breathe in slowly, exhale, and you feel content.

“Are you going to be okay for next week?”

Clarke’s eyes are open and concerned when you look at her. “I’ll be fine.”

She doesn’t look convinced. “A knee injury is nothing to scoff at,” Clarke says softly, pulling at the scarf around her neck and it loosens, droops.

“The doctor gave me the okay,” you say and you try to sound as sincere as possible.

Clarke scoots closer, a hand braced on the bench between you. “Yeah, sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s in your best interest.”

“And what is in my best interest?” you say before you can think better of it.

“Taking a break.” Clarke studies you and it’s hard to maintain eye contact with her. She’s not intimidating, but sometimes maybe you think she could be. “Putting yourself first. I could go on.”

“You know me, Clarke,” and you pause, lifting your left hand from the compress to pick distractedly at the athletic tape around your fingers. It peels off in satisfying strips and Clarke offers her hand so you don’t toss it onto the floor. You hand it to her gently.

“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself. I know how much this means to you.”

“I won’t,” you say, and Clarke gives you a small smile, shaking her head.

“Sure.”

You don’t say anything for a while, packing all of your equipment into your bag far more neatly than usual and beside you Clarke sighs, leaning back on her arms, tape crumpled in her fist as she waits for you to finish. It’s not long, but you realize you’re stalling. For some reason or another.

“Will I see you there?” you ask finally, finding her eyes and she holds your stare.

“Of course you will,” Clarke says and you bite the inside of your cheek. She places her hand gently on your knee. “C’mon. I’ll give you a ride home.”

You fall asleep in the passenger seat of her sedan, the radio soft and the heat surrounding you.

 

* * *

 

You don’t see her.

The stands are filled and the floor is packed with coaches and other competitors, but there isn’t a flicker of her. You feel hot, the collar of your jacket snug around your neck, but it’s the twinge in your knee that makes you frown as you stand at the end of the strip trying to catch your breath. One minute is all you have and all you can think about is how you wish she was here.

Down on the sidelines Gustus yells tactics, hands cupped around his mouth, words booming, but the buzzer sounds and you take one last breath, wiping the sweat from your forehead with your sleeve before fitting the mask back over your head.

The third and final period begins with you down six to nine and the second you settle into en garde, knees bent, you grit your teeth and forget.

You win fifteen to ten with a riposte lunge to the chest. The length of your blade bends and sinks and the buzzer blares. You crumple to your knees with a triumphant yell and your lungs ache with it, burning with the subsequent lungfuls of air you greedily inhale, but at least it helps you forget about the pain shooting through your knee.

You heave yourself to your feet at the sound of the referee, grimacing behind your mask before you take it off, tucking it under your arm. You shake hands with your competitor and they tell you congratulations and good game and you repeat the sentiment before stepping down from the platform and into Gustus’ waiting arms. His hugs are always long and somewhat painful, but he lets you go with minimal squeezing and one slightly stern look that lets you know you’re in trouble when you’re back on home ground. He pats your back and tells you to clean up for the award presentations.

There’s a small hobble in your step as you make your way to the benches, leaning your sabre against your bag and your mask beside it on the bench. You unzip your jacket halfway, tugging the collar away from your neck so that it hangs open, allowing the air to cool your heated skin, and you breathe normally in what feels like hours.

“Lexa,” comes Gustus’ low voice from somewhere behind you and your water-bottle pauses halfway to your mouth. It sounds like a warning, and when you look you realize exactly what he means.

You get exactly one second to react before Clarke barrels full force into you, and it’s kind of like getting the wind knocked out of you. Physically. Metaphorically. Her arms wrap around your neck and you stumble back, catching yourself a little painfully with your left leg, but you don’t feel it really. You feel her breath on your skin, her face buried into the crook of your neck, and you want to stay there forever.

“You smell like sweat.”

“That’s the scent of victory,” you say and Clarke chuckles softly. She makes no move to release you though and your whole body melts into hers. “I’m glad you’re here.”

She sighs, her lips against your skin. “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

Your knee leaves you out of commission for most of the post tournament training, but that doesn’t mean you spend it on the bench. You help Gustus coach the incoming freshman with steady hands and a stern heart, putting the returning sophomores and juniors through their paces, and you like the normalcy it brings.

Clarke goes with you to physiotherapy every monday even though you tell her she doesn’t have to. She makes sure you remember your pain medication and reminds you to stretch and after a certain point you give up trying to tell her that you’ve been through this before.

She’s attentive to a fault and wholly forgetful, so the monday you don’t see her you think nothing of it, but the physical therapist makes a comment about your missing girlfriend and the quip doesn’t fail to make you blush. You see her later that night however. Stretched out over the couch as you are while Anya goes about her work at the kitchen table. There’s only one person it could be knocking at your door.

You stand up, favoring your left leg, and manage to make it halfway before Anya notices and glares at you, silently scolding. It’s too late to stop you now, though, so she returns to her books with an exasperated huff. You shuffle the last few steps, reaching for the handle without bothering to check, and open the door to find Clarke standing awkwardly out in the hall.

All she has is her clothes. A pair of torn, paint stained jeans and a loose v-neck t-shirt under a rather flimsy jacket, and you find yourself staring. At the entirety of her. And maybe it’s all the pain medication you’ve been taking but you feel lighter when you see her.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“A little, yeah,” she says, as if it’s the most casual thing in the world. You rest your weight against the door frame and she watches you for a moment before saying, “I locked myself out of my apartment.”

You blink once, then twice, and you can tell by the embarrassment that she’s telling you the truth.

“I ran out to grab some milk from the convenience store down the street and I didn’t have have my wallet and now my phone’s locked in there and--”

“Wells?”

“Left for a conference in tennessee for his internship and won’t be back until late Friday night,” she tells you softly, shrinking.

You glance over your shoulder, finding Anya with her head in her hand watching you. By the amused look on her face, you can tell she knows the gist. She packs up her things, piling the books and papers into her arms and then stands.

“I’m going to study in my room,” Anya says, half smiling, and you’d stick out your tongue at her if you were still five years old. She’s true to her word though, the door to her room closing with a tell tale rattle and you turn expectantly back to Clarke.

“Do you mind if I crash here? For the night?” she begins after a moment, rolling the cuff of her sleeve between her fingers. “Raven’s with her engineering buddies right now but she’ll let me crash on her couch tomorrow if I promise to bring her beer.”

“You can stay, you know, until Wells gets back,” you say, trying not to smile.

“But Anya--”

“Her bark is worse than her bite.”

“I don’t want to put you out or anything.”

You scoff, picking yourself up from your slouch against the door. “I think we can handle you,” you say, moving aside to let her in and she hesitates only for a second before shuffling inside.

You close the door behind her, careful with the weight on your leg as you follow behind her into the kitchen. You bypass her towards the fridge, opening it to rummage through the contents for the leftovers from earlier. It’s some chicken tomato pasta Anya had whipped up about an hour ago.

“Food?” you ask, already fixing her up a plate.

“Can I borrow your phone?”

You nod as you scoop out some pasta from the tupperware container and into a bowl. “It’s on the table.”

Feet shuffle behind you as Clarke goes to use your phone and you deposit the bowl into the microwave. You set the time to one minute and then press start, the low hum filling the empty space. You busy yourself with the extra dishes in the sink, washing the few cups loitering there and fishing out the food when the microwaves beeps.

Clarke finishes up as you dig out a fork from the drawer near the sink, placing your phone face down on the table when you make your way back to her with the bowl of food. You slide it across to her and then take a seat, kneading the discomfort from your knee.

“Thank you,” she says and you shake your head.

“You can take my bed--”

Clarke’s response is practically immediate. “No.”

“Clarke,” you say, but she doesn’t let you finish.

“No, Lexa, I’m not stealing your bed from you. I’ll be fine on the couch.”

You roll your eyes and Clarke pretends not to see you, spearing the pasta with her fork and bringing it to her mouth.

“Thanks,” she says once the pasta has been adequately chewed and swallowed, and you prop your head in your hand, your smile half hidden in your palm.

“Sure thing.”

 

* * *

 

The laundromat is quiet on Tuesday afternoon. The sun is warm through the front windows, spilling across your backs as you wait for the dryer to finish its cycle. Clarke’s knee bounces distractedly beside you, part impatience, part boredom. You try not to focus on her, but it’s difficult. She’s wearing your clothes -- your favorite sweatshirt and one of the last few clean pairs of joggers -- and her hair is still slightly messy from a night spent on your couch. Wavy with a mind of its own, so you don’t stop yourself from reaching to tuck those pesky flyaways back behind her ear.

You figure if you’re not already past that point in this relationship you might as well be. “How was the couch?”

Clarke purses her lips, refusing to look at you, and the unintentional smile on your lips is a gradual happening.

“That good huh?” You pull your hand away, settling it back in your lap as you watch her quietly. She’s steadfast until the last possible moment, the sun across the side of her face, highlighting her hair. The smile takes hold of her lips, spreads, and she scrunches her shoulders, nosing the neckline of your sweatshirt until it covers her mouth and the evidence therein.

“Shut up,” she mutters, voice muffled, and bumps her shoulder against yours.

 

* * *

 

That night finds the both of you watching jeopardy while Anya hogs the kitchen table with her work. You’re spread out across the couch, watching with half lidded eyes that flutter open when Clarke adds side commentary. She’s tucked into the opposite side of the couch with your legs stretched across her lap, her left thumb making unconscious but comforting circles over your knee, and it’s the absolute worst.

She’s far more awake than you and it feels like cheating.

“What is an autoclave,” Clarke says and it’s only a matter of seconds before--

“Correct.” Alex trebek’s voice is almost comical in it's timing and you turn your head to look, mouth slightly ajar, at Clarke. She doesn’t look back, but she also doesn’t bother hiding her smirk.

You’re slightly awed. “How do you know all this?”

“Lucky guess?” Clarke shrugs nonchalantly, her right hand rising to scratch her nose before she settles it next to the other by your knee.

“After a certain point it’s no longer guessing,” you say.

“Yeah, but you also fell asleep on me for a little bit there. I’m playing to my strengths.”

“I was--”

“--resting your eyes.” She pats your knee, gentle. “Cool motive, still sleeping though.”

You focus on the television, willing yourself not to smile, but you feel warm and happy all at once. The tiredness that sits heavy on your chest is second to her, that softness she shows you in the lilt to her smile lost among the noise of your apartment. The scratch of Anya’s pen, the turning of paper, the far away drone of those sing-song commercials you despise. . .

Watching jeopardy late at night with your legs sprawled over someone’s lap and you want to kiss her -- to cup her cheeks and kiss her like you’re looking forward to forever with her and it’s almost as absurd as saying you loved her the moment you saw her.

You fall asleep listening to the ten o’clock news and Clarke’s hand is warm over your knee. It’s a restful sleep.

 

* * *

 

Morning comes with the rain. A drizzle that patters against the sliding doors and the window panes and you watch the rivulets meander down the glass in a hazy kind of acceptance. Clarke is curled into the cushions on the other end, cheek smushed against the arm, hair rustling as she breathes, and you can’t find it in yourself to care that your leg feels like it’s cramping pulled close to her stomach or that you had just starting getting back into the hang of early morning walks in the wake of your injury.

You watch her in that stillness dawn brings, in that little bit of light that pools shadows and grays onto the hardwood of your floors and it’s almost like you can see her better now than you could before.

Her face is calm and she looks content and you wouldn’t ruin that for the world.

 

* * *

 

You find her in the kitchen when you come home and your chest goes tight at the sight of her. Clarke has her back to you, but there’s no mistaking your sweatshirt. She hums what sounds like ‘girls just wanna have fun’ as she chops up a few stalks of celery into tiny pieces. Her movements are precise and delicate, practiced, but her hips move to the rhythm of her own voice and you find yourself drawn to her inexplicably.

“Clarke,” you say, and there’s a moment between her name on your tongue and when she looks at you, but the smile is all in her eyes.

“Hey,” she says, not particularly surprised, but she stops the small sway of her hips and you miss the sound of her voice low in her throat. “I didn’t hear you come in. Practice?”

“Mostly just watching. Gustus won’t let me train until the doctor gives me the all clear,” you say as you make your way over, toeing out of your sneakers and shrugging out of your jacket. You eye the pot bubbling on the stove. “Soup?”

“Yeah.” She gathers the chopped celery from the counter into her hands and dumps them into the pot, dusting her hands until the last bits plop into the broth. “I thought I’d make dinner. As a thank you for putting up with me.”

“You don’t have to.”

“That’s exactly why I should,” Clarke says, glancing at you. “Plus, you won’t let me pay rent.”

“You don’t live here, Clarke. Why would I make you pay rent?”

“Because it would be the nice thing to do,” Clarke teases, reaching for the bag of baby carrots. She pulls out a handful and sets to cutting them, brushing the pieces aside once the pile grows too big and switching to a halved onion. “Could you put the chicken in?”

You pick up the pan off the back burner of the stove and gradually add the already diced chicken to the other contents in the pot. Clarke dries her hands on the dish towel that she has looped around the cabinet handle once she’s done and you stand idly by, feeling a slouch settle into your shoulders.

“Are you going to make dumplings?”

Clarke runs the cloth over the counter, cleaning up the ends of the celery and carrots. “Do you want dumplings?”

“Yes.”

“Does Anya like dumplings?”

“No.”

She studies your face, eyebrow slightly quirked, before she puts down the cloth and rummages through the cabinets for the bisquick and a measuring cup.

“She doesn’t hate them, I mean,” you add, and Clarke’s lips quirk.

“What is the truth?” she says, focusing on you again, and her smile dimples her cheeks. “If I get murdered for these dumplings I’m haunting your ass.”

“Please,” you say, sincere, and she elbows you playfully in the side.

 

* * *

 

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit,” is the mantra that greets you on thursday morning when you get back from your walk, Clarke a blur through your otherwise quiet apartment. She disappears into the bathroom not wearing pants, thighs half hidden under a large white t-shirt she stole from your laundry pile and had been using to sleep in for the last two days, and you stand somewhat dumbfounded in the entryway hesitant to move.

Clarke doesn’t see you, the bathroom door ajar, and you can hear the clunk of the blow drier and the fumble of a brush in the drawer. There’s a couple more softly forceful ‘fucks’ and then she’s back out in the hall. She spots you immediately.

“Lexa. Lexa, I forgot--” She looks frazzled, running her fingers through her hair as she makes her way over. Her eyes can’t seem to focus on one thing for more than a few seconds. “I had a reminder set and--and my phone… I need to be at an interview for an internship in an hour and I forgot.”

You reach out to her, your fingers light along her forearm and she relaxes visibly at the touch. Her shoulders slump and she breathes out slowly, eyes closed, right thumb dug into her temple, but the pinch between her brows lessens.

“I need this to work,” she says softly, dropping her head to your shoulder. It’s a few quiet seconds before she mumbles, “Do you have a shirt I could borrow? A nice one? Maybe a skirt or a pair of pants.”

You crack a smile. Mostly to yourself, but when she lifts her head and sees you it has the desired effect. “When am I not prepared?”

“When I got here you didn’t have milk.”

You push her away, off towards your room. “There’s few outfits that might fit you in my closet. Shoes are in the back on the floor.”

“Thank you,” she exhales, looking more relieved than you thought was possible, and she’s gone in seconds.

You stand there until you’re sure she’s not coming back, the rustling of drawers opening and closing, the hooks sliding in your closet as Clarke no doubt surveys her options. Ten minutes later you’re sitting at the kitchen table with a book and Clarke’s forgotten cup of coffee, still hot despite the dissipating steam. You catch a glimpse of her as she darts across the hall to the bathroom and then five minutes later when she emerges looking rather put together despite the frazzled look in her eyes. Her hair is in a plain but neat updo, white blouse and a simple, pretty skirt you didn’t remember you had.

“Do you need a ride?” you ask, watching as she snags your nice jacket from the coat hanger by the door, hastily putting her arms through the sleeves and then giving it a little shake to fix the collar.

“No, no that’s fine.” She backtracks to the counter to snag an apple, the flats she found in your closet pattering across the floor. “The bus takes me right to the museum and I don’t know how long it’ll go for.”

“Let me know if you want me to pick you up.”

Clarke smiles at you, polishing the apple on the front of her blouse. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” you say, but she’s already halfway to the door. “Clarke your coffee--”

“Savor it for me!” she calls back to you, the door closing shut behind her.

The apartment is quiet with her gone and Anya working. There’s some papers you need to read and an essay that needs revisiting, but you pick up your book again, leafing through to where you had left of, your free hand reaching out to pull Clarke’s mug close. You take a sip and it doesn’t taste as bad as it could.

The door opens again sometime later and you haven’t managed to move, and you know you’re in for it long before Anya even has to the chance to open her mouth.

“Are you drinking coffee?”

You look up from your book propped open on the kitchen table, your right hand curled around Clarke’s now lukewarm cup of coffee, and Anya stares back at you thoroughly confused. “It’s Clarke’s.”

“You’re drinking Clarke’s coffee?”

“I didn’t want to waste it.”

Anya squints at you, clearly judging, but you look back to your book, turning the page, fingers drumming along the side of the mug. On her way by to her room, though, she lightly whacks you in the back of the head. It doesn’t hurt. As a matter of fact you’d barely even call it a hit. She’s shown you much worse on the strip, but you guess that’s what makes the ghost of a smile on her lips as warm as it is.

 

* * *

 

You get back from a meeting with your advisor and then practice later that day to a headache that is a force to be reckoned with. You manage a tired shuffle to the bathroom for some ibuprofen, drinking it down with a glass of tap water from the faucet, before gathering a little bowl of leftover soup from the fridge. It’s more food than broth, and you sit on the couch with the bowl in your lap, waiting for the painkillers to kick in.

Which they do. Eventually. Kinda. Your bowl is picked clean of chicken and carrots and celery (the onions you could care less for) and your face down on the couch halfway asleep. Around you the living room has grown dark, the television a mindless distraction you’ve already managed to tune out. You want to sleep, but the last of the pain still leftover from the headache, dull behind your closed eyes, holds you at the precipice.

So you hear the door open, hear the fumble of keys and soft steps. A flash of light floods the kitchen and you turn away from it, turning your head to face the back of the couch and letting out a long suffering sigh into the cushions.

You hope whatever it is goes away and leaves you to suffer, but the footsteps grow louder and a gentle hand settles warmly over your back.

“Hey,” Clarke says, voice quiet and a bit rough around the edges, and you squint up at her. A part of your relaxes at the sight of her. “You’re in my spot.”

You roll your eyes at her soft laughter and let your head drop back to the couch with a weak groan. “Clarke.”

She takes a seat on the edge, careful of your knee, and passes her hand back and forth across your back. “Are you okay?”

“Just a headache.”

“Do you want some aspirin?”

You feel heavy and oddly boneless, and for the first time this evening the pain slips from your mind. “No.”

“Alright. Suit yourself,” Clarke says, but she doesn’t move. She rubs your back with the dull tips of her fingers and you can feel the sleep settle just behind your eyes.

It vanishes the second she stands however, and you have to stop yourself from picking up your head to look for her. You can hear her, though. Her soft steps, the opening and closing of your bedroom door, the bathroom faucet, and you shut your eyes tight, forcing the breath from your lungs in a sigh and you try to relax with it. There’s a moment where you think maybe you can. Without her. When there’s nothing but the sounds drifting up from outside and the late night traffic.

But you hear her quiet return. The hum of the fridge as she opens it, the soft clink of glass as she reaches for a cup, the pad of bare feet as she makes her way back to the couch, placing the cup down on the coffee table.

“What are you doing, Clarke?”

“Being stubborn.” You feel her nudge you. “Now scoot.”

It's less of a scooting and more of Clarke staking a claim to the edge of the couch, and you either accommodate or get crushed. It’s a bit of both in the end. The couch wasn’t made for two and she’s half laid on top of you, face pressed to your shoulder and the back of your neck, your hair probably in her face, and her breath tickles your skin when she exhales.

“You’re warm.”

You hum because you’re tired and you feel warm and everything else is too much work.

“The interview went well.” She burrows her face into your shirt. “Thank you for letting me borrow your clothes.”

“Mm.”

“If there’s anything I can do--”

“Take my bed,” you mutter sleepily, and she doesn’t have to see you to know that you’re smiling.

“No,” she mutters back, and you’re glad she doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

Clarke leaves late friday, after a call from Wells that you overhear while making dinner. He’s in a cab on his way back to their apartment, and you don’t know why you think you’ll be anything but disappointed when she goes. She hugs you tightly in the kitchen and your lips find her forehead, pressing there softly.

She leaves wearing your clothes, and you stand there in your sweats and fluffy socks staring blankly at the door.

You don’t see her much that weekend. You have the last session with your doctor that saturday and on monday morning after a routine check up you’re finally given the all-clear to return to practice and the rigorous training schedule you’ve set yourself for nationals. Which is a ways off, you know, but you’ve learned it's never too early to prepare.

The first thing you do though, when you step out onto the sidewalk is reach for your phone in the corner pocket of your equipment bag, fighting back a smile when you tap the messages app and type a quick text to Clarke (who responds near immediately despite still being in her morning class).

She says she’ll meet you by the library later, so you spend the rest of the morning at the gym with Anya and a few other members. It feels nice to push yourself after the last month, to feel that familiar burn in your lungs, but you pack up a little early, pointedly ignoring the way Anya smirks at you.

“The girlfriend?”

“We’re not dating.”

“Did you tell her that?”

You finish stuffing the last few things into your bag and then reach for the sweater you had draped over the bench. “She told me, actually,” you say, tugging it over your head and down over your tank-top.

Anya whistles but doesn’t say anything else, and when you finally look you find her watching Aden and another freshman as they trade practice blows.

“Tris, what did I just say?” Anya calls and you can see the girl grit her teeth from here. There’s a grunt you’re not sure is supposed to intelligible, but Anya finds it amusing enough to smile. Which is something.

“Make sure Aden doesn’t forget the registration form.”

Anya glances at you. “Sure,” she says, studying you for a moment before returning her attention back to the bout. “Tell Clarke I said hi.”

You sling your bag over your shoulder already on your way to the door. “Like she’ll believe that.”

The sun hits your shoulders when you step outside and it feels a little bit like spring. The breeze is cold as you make your way across campus and you miss the sun the moment you dip into the on campus coffee shop for a little surprise. You’re in and out in a matter of seconds, tearing the wrapper of the straw with your teeth as you nudge open the door with your shoulder, careful of the hot cup of coffee in your hand.

You take the steps up to the library two at a time and you spot her sitting on one of the benches that line the perimeter of the building. She’s wearing one of your sweaters, hair pulled over her shoulder and in her face, head propped up on her hand.

She perks up at the sight of you.

“You made it.” Clarke smiles, closing the textbook in her lap and pushing back the hair that had fallen in her eyes. It’s unruly and windswept in the cool spring air, all golden wisps and curls.

You slip beside her on the bench, shrugging the equipment bag from your shoulder and it lands with a heavy thunk on the wood. “I said I would,” you say, reaching out to offer her the cup of coffee in your right hand. Her eyes light up and you can’t help that little flutter in your chest–-that small, tell-tale smile that tilts your lips. “Though I did make a slight detour.”

She accepts it with both hands, eagerly, pulling it close to inhale the steam. The subsequent sigh is euphoric. “I love you so much.”

A blush creeps to your cheeks and you can feel the way your heart twists at her words and oh it’s the sweetest kind of pain.

 

* * *

 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Clarke says as she pulls out a chair and slips into the seat beside you. You can feel her smile in the way she presses her mouth to your shoulder, peeking over at the highlighted print-outs and the notebook filled line for line with quickly scribbled notes. Her right arm lines up with your left, elbow to pinky, and it takes more than you’re willing to admit to keep your hand to yourself.

“I told you I was going to be here, Clarke,” you say, almost smiling. You don’t move, staring absently at the point where your fingers touch.

“Work?”

“My prelim paper,” you tell her, looking up. Her eyes look bluer in spring. “It’s due next week.”

“And you’re not already done?”

“No.”

Clarke scoots closer. “But almost.”

“Almost,” you reply with a small smile before looking away. She hooks a finger in the cuff of your button-up and you turn your hand palm up, jotting down your thoughts before they’re replaced by something else. Clarke weaves her fingers through yours and you give a little squeeze, the scratch of your pen the only sound between the two of you.

“Can I interest you in dinner?”

You pause briefly. “Dinner, Clarke?”

“I have a coupon.” She pulls your captured hand close. “My treat.”

There’s something about the sincerity to her words that splits your lips into a grin. Beside you Clarke smiles and your cheeks hurt and you feel like laughing. “How can I say no to that.”

 

* * *

 

“You have a motorcycle?” Clarke says, and for a fraction of a second you almost regret offering to drive.

“It’s more of a sports bike, but yes?”

“So not only do you poke people with potentially dangerous metal sticks, but I also have to worry about you riding around on this?”

“I am an exemplary driver, Clarke.”

“Please tell me you have a helmet.”

You hand her the one in your hands and she accepts it almost dumbfoundedly. “I have two.”

“How did I not know this?”

“I don’t use it in winter. It’s too dangerous.” You throw your right leg over, settling in the seat, gripping the handles and reacquainting yourself with the feel. “Plus you never asked.”

“I just thought you jogged everywhere.”

“Not when the weather’s nice.” You turn, patting the space behind you. “Are you coming?”

“I’d prefer my sedan.”

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to, Clarke.”

She stares at the helmet in her hands for a long moment before pulling it down determinedly over head and stalking over to your side. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”

You reach out to fasten the clasps under her chin, making sure the straps are snug. “Does it feel alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Not too tight?”

“No.”

You nod, unhooking the other helmet from the end of your handlebars and placing it on your head. You motion for her to climb on after you start the engine and she does a little hesitantly, her hands at your waist and her nails a subtle bite in your skin. Once she’s secure, you stand the bike upright and then fold up the kickstand, glancing over your shoulder at Clarke.

“Are you ready?” you ask, voice muffled.

She nods. “As I’ll ever be.”

 

* * *

 

“Then who owns the toyota?” Clarke asks you over your pizza dinner, both of you tucked into your preferred corner booth by the windows.

“It’s Anya’s. She lets me borrow it when she’s feeling generous.”

“Which is never.”

You shrug, a smirk stealing it's way to your lips and you pilfer the pizza crust off Clarke’s plate. “I’ve learned not to ask.”

 

* * *

 

You knock even though the door’s open and Clarke turns instinctively at the sound, a smile already forming. “Hey,” she says, sitting back on her stool. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

“The lady at the front desk gave me a weird look,” you say as you enter, leaving the door to her studio open just a little bit.

Clarke chuckles, putting her pallet knife down on the tray of mixed paints to her left. She wipes most of the paint from her hands with a rag draped over her lap. What’s left clings stubbornly between her knuckles and on the inside of her fingers, speckled up her forearms where the worn button down doesn’t cover, the sleeves rolled up.

“Visiting hours are over, didn’t you hear?”

“I did not.”

“It’s a good thing Mrs. Rylee isn’t a stickler for the rules then,” she says, watching as you pull up a chair, settling it beside her. You find there’s a subtle height difference between your seats and your heart skips when you look up at her.

“Lucky me,” you say, sarcastic if it weren’t for the fact that any moment you get to share with her feels precious.

Clarke grins cheekily. “Very.”

She studies at you, nervous hands rubbing at her thighs, and at some point her grin melts into something soft. She’s quick to look away then, shifting her attention back to the painting propped up on the makeshift easel in front of her, and then back to you.

“Give me a sec? I’m almost done.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks.”

You sink a little further into your chair, your eyes finally taking in the painting propped up on the easel. Like the others scattered about to dry, it’s intimidating in its size, thick swaths of color Clarke applies directly with the knife. She applies and smooths, leaning back to study it and then starting again, focused. There’s a bit of music coming from the radio she has balanced on a few boxes in the corner and you’d say it was magic, watching it come together piece by piece.

You see the mouth first, the chin and the twist of the neck. A shoulder, smooth and scattered red, the thin brown curls down a pale back.

“It’s a work in progress.”

Startled, you look at Clarke only to find her attention elsewhere, absently running the palette knife across her thigh, missing the rag entirely and the excess paint joins the myriad of colors already present on her pants, before swiping another from her palette.

“You’re very talented.”

She shrugs, placing colors strategically and careful not to waste, but she seems unafraid of mistakes. “It’s a lot of work. A lot of time.” She falls quiet, leaning back to observe. You watch her shake her head and sigh. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it.”

“You love it though.”

“I like it enough not to quit three weeks before finals.” She says it as a joke, but the hesitancy is hard to miss when she looks at you. “I mean... I love it. I do. It’s just… you ever think what if you might be better suited somewhere else?”

“I make the world suit me,” you reply, and it's a bit of a joke, but you mean it, and the way Clarke turns away with a small smile you think she understands.

 

* * *

 

The week is quiet with the looming threat of finals and graduation and your dissertation, and you learn concentration does not come easily in Clarke’s presence despite her good intentions. There’s a string of texts between the two of you throughout the week that consist of various emojis in states of distress and they're more uplifting than probably intended.

Friday you see her for a moment, in passing out on the quad. Her on her way back to the art department and you moments away from drowning in the library. You have a feeling you’re both tired and in need of a good night’s sleep, but she asks about your day and you smile. You don’t realize how close you get to her until your lips touch her forehead and she sighs, pressing into you, her cup of coffee held safely out to the side.

Saturday’s practice goes by without a hitch. In fact, you feel great. There’s a soreness to your limbs you can already feel, in your arms and legs, and you stretch out on one of the benches just outside the gym and enjoy a moment of the nice weather. You take your phone out, scrolling through last week’s text with this quirk to your lips and you send a message about dinner at your place with a movie and maybe a little bit of wine. Really you kind of just want to fall asleep with her there.

There’s no immediate reply and you’re first thought is that she’s busy. With her senior showcase less than a month away there’s a high chance she hasn’t left the art building since you saw her on the quad that friday afternoon. Her focus and determination is second to none and that’s nothing new so you decide to be spontaneous for once. You haul yourself up from the bench, sling your bag over your shoulder, and begin the short trek over to the art building.

You see Niylah setting up a sculpture in one of the open areas in the main hall. Well, more accurately, she sees you first and waves, stepping down from the ladder. You wave back, making your way over.

“Clarke?” she says, draping her arm over the top, and you nod. “To be honest I haven’t seen her since yesterday. She was here late finishing up a painting. Probably just sleeping it off.”

“Oh.” Your voice is soft on the exhale and your gaze drops to your feet.

“The girlfriend thing going okay?”

“Hm?” You look up and you must resemble an abandoned puppy because the sympathetic smile Niylah aims at you couldn’t possibly be for anything else. “Oh. No. I’m not--”

She watches you in that quiet way Clarke does sometimes, leant against the step ladder. Like they know more than you do and the infuriating thing you’ve learned is that they actually do.

“I’m just worried. That’s all.”

“Making people worry is Clarke’s number one skill.” Niylah says with a small smile. “You could try Wells? If there’s one person who knows where Clarke is it’s him.”

A part of you thinks you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, but you nod anyway. “Thank you.”

She smiles. “Anytime.” She grabs a piece of folded metal and a few metal hooks before making her way back up the ladder. “Someone’s got to keep Clarke in line.”

It does little to quell the worst of the fear. You don’t hear anything all of saturday night and by sunday morning you're beginning to feel the dread. You find Wells’ number from all those months ago when Clarke had stolen your phone to text for the duration of her lock-out. You dial the number without thinking.

“She had to go home,” Wells says, and you frown. The defeat in his voice worries you more than anything else. “Something with her dad? I don’t know, she kinda rushed out of here friday night. Didn’t tell me anything. I don’t even know if she has her phone with her.”

“You haven’t heard from her since?”

“No.”

You rub your forehead, eyes closed and attempting to ward off a headache you know is coming. “If you hear anything, could you tell her to give me a call?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course.”

“Thank you.”

He hangs up not long after and you’re left sitting at the kitchen table in utter silence. You breathe out softly, pulling the hair from your face, and rifle through your contacts until you come across her number. It rings a few times before going to voicemail, her pre-recorded message oddly upbeat compared to the worry you’re feeling.

“Clarke,” you say, and your voice wobbles. “If you get this could you give me a call back? Please.”

You wait, phone pressed to ear, longer than you have to. It doesn't feel right without her.

 

* * *

 

 

“Your guard, Aden,” you grit from under your mask, faking a lunge forward and he flinches. You take advantage of the mistake to whack his wrist with your blade. “Keep that hand up.”

His breaths come labored, and you can see the narrowed slit of his eyes through the mesh. He pushes forward and you fall back to compensate the sudden advance. You feel a prickle in your knee as you retreat and in the moment it takes to think about it, Aden lands a hit square to your chest. It throws you off balance as you attempt to avoid strain on your knee and as a result you fall backwards, landing ungracefully on your ass.

Aden fumbles with his mask, peeling it off, and by the look on his face you half expect him to apologize, but you take off your mask and he heaves a sigh at the small smile on your face. He holds out his hand and you take it.

“That was good,” you say as he helps you up.

Aden ducks his head. “Thanks.”

“Take a water break.” You pat him on the shoulder. “We’ll pick back up in a second.”

“Sure, yeah. I’m down. Thanks.”

He walks off like he got away with murder and is still expecting retaliation, running his hand through his hair, but Ryder beams at him as he gets closer to the bench and his things, and you can see his cheeks grow red.

You shake your head, but you feel better than you have in days. On your way over to your bag, the twinge in your knee settles and the anxiety fades. You take a seat next to your things, placing your helmet on the bench next to you and reaching for your phone in the corner pocket after balancing your sabre against your leg. What you see makes your heart stop.

You have three missed calls from Clarke within the last forty minutes and you’re up and out of the gym faster than it takes your fingers to call her back. You take a left right out of the doors as it rings and down into a secluded hallway that leads outside, the red exit sign glowing down at the end above the double doors.

Your heart picks up. “Clarke?”

And it’s a moment, but Clarke’s voice comes broken through the receiver. “-- _Lexa_.”

Her voice wobbles, thick and congested from crying, and you let your head fall back against the wall with a thud, sliding down until you’re sitting hunched over in the empty hall with your head in your hand. It’s warm against the cooling sweat on your forehead, the roots of your hair still damp, and it’s an odd sensation to find comfort in.

“What’s wrong?”

“Lexa--” The breaths she takes come shallow and you hear her drag her hand across her nose. “--my dad. He--”

“Clarke.”

“He’s--he got sick and--” Her inhale is stuttering, the exhale forced even. “I don’t know what I’d do without him, Lexa.”

“It’s okay, Clarke. It’s okay.”

From the hall the shouts and supportive yells of your teammates are muffled by the walls, but the sound is deafening. You press your phone to your ear, straining to hear over the students who wander the main foyer, their steps heavy on the tile floor.

“I was so scared.”

“I’m right here,” you say softly back, closing your eyes. You picture her next to you, her hand woven with yours and her head on your shoulder, close enough to kiss. “I’m here.”

You wish you could be.

 

* * *

 

The next day you call Wells just in case and he tells you he heard that morning from his father, a long time friend of Mr. and Mrs. Griffin. Beyond that, however, there’s not much more he offers. There’s no definitive when Clarke will return, and you find it’s tough to put aside the part of you that wants to see her for yourself just to be sure.

Anya says it makes you irritable, not being able to see Clarke, and you don’t deny it, but you know when to make the difference between your contentedness and Clarke’s happiness.

She calls you though, sporadically and never for too long, but you’ll take whatever she’s ready to give. You ramble about everything and anything you can think of. Your prelim paper, the ideas you have for your dissertation, Aden’s improvements and your training for nationals. Even that little soup place you and Anya found a week ago that you think she’d enjoy. You don’t think you’ve ever talked as much as you do during those phone calls, but you’d talk about the state of bowling in California if it meant Clarke got a moment away from the stress, even if only for a little while.

It’s how you find yourself one night with a book propped on your stomach and your phone tucked between your shoulder and ear. Your lamp glows softly on your bedside table and the page crinkles as you turn it.

“What page are you on now?” Clarke’s voice is soft and you know she’d be asleep if it weren’t for you.

“32.”

Clarke falls quiet, and you make it to the next page before she speaks up again, voice hoarse with that almost sleep. “Are they in love yet?”

You try not to get caught up in that word. Love. But it makes you pause. You run your index finger over the corner of your paperback, Clarke’s breathing soft in your ear and you don’t think about the way she smiles or the softness of her hand in yours.

“Not yet,” you say and Clarke hums in response. The sound sits in your chest, and you realize after a moment that you’re no longer reading. “You should rest, Clarke.”

“I am,” she mumbles back.

“I meant actually sleeping.”

You hear shuffling and you turn your head toward the noise, closer to the phone balanced on your shoulder.

“Will you still be there?”

“If you want.”

Clarke exhales softly. “Please.”

You pick up your phone with your left hand, switching it from your right ear and lean back until your head hits the headboard. You stare at the ceiling, hand over the book propped open on your stomach, and inch by inch you relax.

 

* * *

 

“I haven’t touched your laundry, Lexa.”

You lean around the corner of the hall, dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, staring pointed at Anya. “Then where is it?”

“Maybe at the bottom of the hamper in the bathroom with everything else?” Anya says with an eyeroll and a dismissive wave of her hand.

“And you think I haven’t already checked there?”

“Then when was the last time you saw it?”

“I don’t know.” Your brow creases. “A while ago?”

Anya watches you with a bored look on her face and you sigh, head lolling to the side and your neck cracks. You step out of the hall, padding over to the kitchen table and slump into the seat across from Anya.

“I’m sure it's here somewhere,” Anya muses, already back to work and you fiddle distractedly with your nails. You have nowhere to be and nothing of importance to do and it makes you feel lost.

“Do you miss her?” Anya says, offhand, glancing up at you.

You don’t look back. “So much.”

 

* * *

 

She calls you at half past three in the morning and it’s a miracle you manage to snag your cell-phone from the nightstand before it goes to voicemail. Your muffled hello is more to your pillow than anything else, hoarse and breaking, your sheets twisted around your legs in your scramble for your phone. It’s the sound of her voice that wakes you.

“Clarke?” You push yourself up onto your forearm, blinking rapidly to clear the haze from your eyes.

“Lexa,” she sighs and the things it does to your heart, “oh, thank god.”

“Clarke, what’s wrong?” you say, and even in the semi-awake state you find yourself in, you’ve already managed to untangle yourself from the sheets to swing your legs over the side of the bed, reaching for the switch of the lamp on the nightstand beside your bed.

“I’m stuck.” you hear the rush of cars through the receiver, the wind as she turns towards it. “My car it–” she exhales noisily through her nose, frustrated “–It broke on my way back to campus and I’m stuck. Triple A put me on hold and I haven’t been able to get through to anyone since and I’m–”

A sigh of relief escapes you, and you reach for the shoes scattered by your bedside. “Where are you?”

She pauses and you can practically see the way she blinks confusingly on the other end of the line. “Just off the interstate. Exit 3…A? There’s a station not far down the road. A Sunoco I think; the gas prices were horrible–”

“Stay there. I’m coming to get you.”

Clarke goes quiet for a moment. “Lexa,” she says finally. “Lexa, you don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” you say back, and it’s as simple as that. You pull on your shoes in the silence that follows, listening to the sounds that carry, her breathing soft in your ear.

“Drive carefully okay?”

“I will. See you soon.”

 

* * *

 

You see Clarke’s beat-up sedan not even a quarter of a mile off the southbound exit and you pull up just behind her car, knocking the kickstand of your bike down with your foot and then pulling off your helmet. The hazard lights click on and off and it’s relatively quiet, and at nearly four in the morning it’s really no wonder as to why. The earth is dry and the breeze is just shy of cold, and you nearly forgot what it’s like just before dawn, watching as the world comes to life around you.

There’s a noise as a car door opens and shuts and you manage to hop off the bike before Clarke rounds the car towards you. Her hair is a bit of a wild mess, but yours is probably much the same, and you try not to think too much about the fact that the sweatshirt you couldn’t find two days ago has finally made its reappearance.

You haven’t seen her in what feels like years, and it’s such a relief.

Clarke steps into your space without fanfare, pulls herself close and squeezes, tucking her face in the crook of your neck with a sigh. She smells like old books and bubblegum. “You look like you just rolled out of bed,” she mutters into your skin and you chuckle.

“This is what you get. Take it or leave it.”

She holds you tighter, as if your threat held any meaningful weight, but it makes you melt all the same. “Thank you,” she says. “For coming to get me.”

You rest your head lightly against hers. “Anytime.”

 

* * *

 

Clarke has you call triple A again and you get them to come tow Clarke’s car to the nearest repair shop. It’s a quarter to five when two men in a tow truck pull up in front and they give you the lowdown before packing up shop and driving off, leaving the both of you with the bike and Clarke staring listlessly as her car disappears down the empty highway, the wind tugging her hair.

“It’ll be back in no time,” you say, and Clarke leans into your side, her arm around your waist.

She’s a little more confident the second time round, her movements more sure and calculated as she climbs on behind you. Her hands find their place on your hips, fingers curled into your jacket, the bike rumbling softly, idle.

You kick up the stand, taking a moment to look both ways despite the quiet sounds of the road. There’s nothing but the wind and the random car rushing past and when the coast is clear, you ease up on the clutch and pull back on the throttle, pulling out onto the highway. The air rushes past and Clarke presses closer, her cheek against your back.

The sun comes up slowly, stretching, and all you feel is the warmth and the wind and Clarke’s arms wrapped around you.

You get back to your apartment building just before six o’clock and you have to prompt her to let you go. Clarke clambers off the back of the bike clutching at the fabric of your jacket, and you hold onto her arm until you’re sure she’s good. She waits for you, holding out the helmet once you’ve dismounted and you take it from her hands with a softly muttered thanks. She shakes her head and you run your fingers through the wind tousled strands of her hair.

The climb up to your apartment is quiet. Tip toe. There’s noises from behind the doors you pass, coffee pots and the whistle of tea, jingling keys and soft muffled conversations. Your apartment door creaks and both of you squeeze inside.

You see remnants of your quick departure, the open drawer when you had rifled through for your keys, the quick coffee you had brewed and the mug that sits barely touched at the counter’s edge.

“Coffee?” you joke softly, placing your helmet on the table.

Clarke rolls her eyes, but she moves closer, leaning on you. Her head bumps your shoulder, and the dark circles under her eyes stand out in those first few rays of sun. “I kinda just want to pass out.”

Your left hand finds the small of her back and you gently nudge her towards the hallway and your room. She watches you over her shoulder not even three steps away as you shrug out of your jacket and drape it across the back of a chair.

You eye her with a slight tick to your brow. “Clarke,” you begin, preparing yourself for the argument you’ve grown used to.

“Just come with me, Lexa.”

And it seems like the easiest thing in the world. The tension releases all at once, muscles slack and shoulders softened into a slouch. “Fine,” you say, but you’re more than happy to follow.

Clarke nods. “Cool,” she says, almost to herself. She’s still for another moment before wandering to the bathroom and you take the time to fix up a few things in the kitchen before making the trek to your room and collapsing face first onto your bed.

Your exhale is long and muffled by the sheets, still a mess from when you had awoken four hours ago and you don’t have the wherewithal to fix them now. The exhaustion sinks deeper the longer you stay still and it only gets worse the second you feel the mattress dip and Clarke settles next to you. Your jog can wait till the afternoon.

Clarke nestles closer after a beat of stillness, unsatisfied with the contact until she’s tucked snugly against your side. She sighs, settling, and her breath warms your shoulder, your neck.

“This is so much more comfortable than the couch.”

Your lips ache with a smile you don’t bother fighting. “I told you so.”

 

* * *

 

You don’t know when you wake up. The sun sifts through the blinds of your window in thin slits littered over your wood floor, but the passage of time is lost somewhere between the dip of clarke’s lips and the smell of her sweatshirt (your sweatshirt). You watch her softly in that afternoon light and think: you were made for this.

Clarke stirs, burrowing her shoulders inward. She sighs though, muscles relaxing not a second later, and with a gentle clearing of her throat, her eyes flutter open. She blinks slowly and you see her focus on you--on your nose, your lips, your eyes. You think she gets lost a little bit, closing her eyes tightly for a second before the tension releases with a sigh.

“Are you going back to sleep?”

“Trying to,” she mutters, voice rough around the edges, and she moves closer to regain the contact she lost in sleep.

“It’s getting late,” you say despite accommodating her shift in position, draping your arm gently over her side. She wiggles closer, her forehead touching your chin.

“Nothing’s making you stay.”

You exhale, your breath stirring the hair on the top of Clarke’s head, and you look past her to the window and the little bits of sun. You can’t see much, and when you’re sure she’s asleep again you gently press your lips to her forehead before carefully untangling yourself from her hold.

The apartment is dead, the clock on the microwave reading just past noon. There’s no sign of Anya and for that you’re grateful. You dump out your old mug into the sink, reaching to make another as the coffee sinks down the drain.

You’re by the stove scrambling some eggs while you wait for the coffee when you finally hear the creak of your door, and you shift to glance over your shoulder, catching Clarke in yesterday's wrinkled clothing. She rubs at her eyes, footsteps soft as she makes her way over to your side, and you turn back around to watch the eggs slowly cook in the pan. It sizzles quietly and you pretend not to pay attention when she comes up beside you, shoulder to shoulder. You notice how she watches your hands, that kind of offhand stare while her mind works with something much too big comprehend. Her hair’s in her eyes and she fiddles with the cuffs of your sweatshirt and for moment the world seems to stop.

“I love you,” she whispers, finding your eyes, and all the air lodges itself in your throat. "Like love you, love you, and I know you're probably thinking it's too fast but--"

“Clarke--” you try, but she doesn't give you a chance.

“--I just wanted you to know. That's all." She stops, self conscious and you watch the inhale she takes, how it stutters. It's adorable, and your mouth drops subtly at the indescribable awe that fills your chest.

You search her face and all you can think and all you can feel is just her name on the tip of your tongue and you think maybe you’re not crazy after all. So you kiss her, there in your kitchen in sweats and tousled hair. You press yourself close until your chest to chest, fingers woven through the tussled hair at her nape, and you feel that breath she takes against you.

“I love you,” she says against your lips, this quiet, content hum in the back of her throat.  “You know that?”

“I like hearing it,” you whisper back, and you find you love the tiny desperate noise she makes when you kiss her again.

This is slow, and you get lost in the feeling of it, of her lips and her scent all around you. You could do this for years, you know that for a fact, and if given the chance you would certainly try, but she angles her face away when you go switch sides, and you can't help but laugh at your own expense.

“Can I take you on a date?” she says, more than a little breathless, but she doesn't move to make space and neither do you.

“According to the campus newspaper and a good deal of the student body, we’ve been dating since October.”

“I remember you saying forever and that wasn’t a no.”

Your watch her softly and try not to smile. It’s a fight you don’t mind losing. “Why me?”

“‘Cause I saw you that day and my heart kind of….” she trails off, pulling away. Her cheeks grow a touch red and your heart feels close to bursting.

“Clarke.”

"Hm?" She looks up from your lips and it's like her mind has to reload. “Can I kiss you?”

You don’t answer. You tilt your head and she rises a bit onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to yours.

You don’t like coffee, but you certainly like her.


End file.
